The film begins by showing
several buildings that stand firmly next to one another. One of them can be occupied
and also have been coverted into a livable apartment. On the same day, a new resident begins to move into
the apartment. His name is Laing. Laing is a doctor who works in the field of physiology,
and now he has been assigned a room on the 25th floor. The building itself has a total of 40 floors in total,
and all the floors are fully occupied by residents. When Laing moves into his new house,
the first thing he does on his first day is sunbathe.
At this moment, he realizes that right above his apartment, there's apartment that belongs to a woman named Charlotte.
Charlotte is a single mother who lives with her young son. There is a man standing next to her;
his name is Wilder and he lives on the bottom floor of the building.
Laing is then told by Charlotte that there
are special facilities for residents on the 20th floor and above, including a gym, spa, swimming pool, supermarket
and a primary school, all of which can be found on the 30th floor. Laing ends up spending the rest
of his day enjoying the aforementioned amenities, and he seems reluctant to start his next day,
which would inevitably require him to get back to work like everyone else.
On the next day, when Laing is about to leave for work, he first goes to dispose of his trash
down the chute. But it's really annoying for him as he finds out that the apartment prohibits its
tenants from disposing large-sized garbage bags. Even so, he disregards the warning and dumps his
garbage bag anyways, making one of the janitors, Robert, reprimand him for it. Robert says that
Laing had just plugged the garbage chute, and this would become an issue for the rest of the tenants.
Later on, Laing now arrives at the physiology school, where he teaches several students how
to perform surgery on the human face. But in the middle of the class, one of the students, Munrow,
passes out because he cannot handle the sight before him.
Later in the day, Laing attends a party hosted by Charlotte,
and it is at this party that Laing meets Helen, alias Wilder's wife who is expecting a child.
To his surprise, Helen seems fine with how Wilder continuously flirts with Charlotte. Well,
in the end Charlotte rejects his advances and is more interested in Laing who is far younger.
Just from this moment we are given the gist of how unusual the tenants of this building are.
Moreover, Helen and Charlotte carefreely invite Laing to swim with them.
Just as Laing is about to take up the invitation, a man named Simmons comes up to him.
The man then asks Laing to come with him because someone apparently wants to see Laing. So he has
no choice but to comply with Simmons' request, and follow him to the top floor. The elevator
used this time is a private one, signifying that Laing is going to meet with someone important.
Well, who would have thought that an immensely vast penthouse would exist on the top floor.
It is so huge that he has to walk pretty far before he encounters a man named Royal.
On this encounter, Laing is informed that he is in the audience of none other than the architect,
who designs this very apartment building. Using his fantasy and imagination,
Royal still has 4 more buildings to finish, and when all of them are finished,
the whole complex would resemble the shape of a human palm.
In other words, all five buildings would represent five fingers, and a huge lake will be built in
the middle. Royal then informs Laing that he has a wife named Ann. Plus, he says that Ann
was an uneducated beggar whose life changed, because Royal lusted over her and married her.
After further inquiries, it turns out that Laing is not the only tenant who has met Royal. Royal
says that only residents of floor 25 and above are allowed to see what he looks like. Tenants
who have met him are also given the opportunity to attend one dinner party he hosts for special
guests. In the evening, Laing makes time to hook up with Charlotte. But they are interrupted by
Toby, Charlotte’s son who suddenly comes running for his mother. Toby has a nanny called Laura,
and so far we know that Laura is a tenant from one of the bottom floors who Charlotte hired.
Days go by, and we see Laing try to match a color for his bedroom wall to the sky.
Laing then goes to the supermarket on the 30th floor to purchase a few things. Not long after, he
accidentally comes across a celebrity called Jane. The woman asks Laing if he wants her autograph,
but Laing not recognizing her, disregards the offer and goes straight for the cashier.
Meanwhile, the special guests are starting to arrive in the building to attend Royal’s party.
Due to the immense amount of electrical use in the high-rise, the building’s maintenance
no longer pays mind to the tenants of the lower floors, who are starting to lose power.
Unfortunately for Laing, the party is 18th century themed, causing the guests to make
fun of him for not wearing the right attire. To his surprise, Laing recognizes one of the
people who makes fun of him. It turns out that the person is Munrow, one of his students who
passed out during his class, and he lives in floor 39. Simmons prohibits the use of
cheap items such as the cigarettes, and drinks Laing purchased at the supermarket. As a result,
Laing is then told to leave the party as soon as possible, and is forced to take a broken elevator.
The days go by, and the residents of the lower floors are now protesting to Robert
due to a 20-hour power outage. The protest is led by Wilder, who has a wife and two children.
They can no longer take how the building’s maintenance keeps neglecting their issues.
We return to Laing who has just arrived at work. At this point, he is given a brain scan of Munrow,
who previously passed out. Laing is informed that he is fine, but he still crossed with Munrow,
and deliberately lies to him by saying that Munrow has a brain tumor.
Long story short, time passes by quickly and we see Laing back in his apartment.
Wilder is now hosting a small party in his apartment where he invites small children,
one of them being Toby. During this time, Wilder, who at this point is beyond sick of
the tenants of the upper floors, decides to take the kids to the swimming pool on the 30th floor.
Well, even though Wilder has no actual right of such amenity, he still insists on getting in. To
add, a party hosted by one of the residents of the upper floors is currently taking place at
the swimming pool. The social disparity only further motivates Wilder to crash the party.
With no regards for what is at stake, Wilder proceeds to wreak havoc with the kids he takes.
He also kills a dog he comes across in the pool to express the hatred he has harbored for so long.
Now, things have escalated after the electrical power supply in the apartment
has proven to be utterly insufficient. In this situation, Royal’s presence is desperately needed,
but Royal is nowhere to be seen, and all the tenants are now at odds with one another.
After the chaos at the swimming pool, tenants of the lower floors are now celebrating their
success by throwing another party. In this party, Wilder attempts to
seduce Simmons wife, which ends with Simmons getting beat up by Wilder.
Even more shocking, as this party takes places,
Munrow decides to take his own life by jumping off the 39th floor. It is clear
that his action reflected his desperation upon receiving the news that he had a brain tumor.
Laing is now covered in guilt, since he had not anticipated Munrow making that poor choice.
After the party the night before, the tenants of the lower floors are still lying around in
exhaustion while Laing is up and about, working out. Unbeknownst to a lot of people, Royal is so
caught up in his own project, that he has been ignoring all the information given by Simmons.
Due to his ignorance and immense focus on reaching his own goals, the situation at the apartment only
gets worse; the food supply is no longer taken care of, neither is the water supply, cleanliness
is no longer paid attention to, and the tension between the tenants is at an all-time-high.
It is at this point that Wilder becomes suspicious of how no police officer has arrived to
investigate about the suicide man, so he intends to expose the injustices within the high-rise
himself. How can the police not investigate, nor does an ambulance come to pick up his body?
The scene then shifts to Simmons and several upper-floor tenants,
plotting something. They've been complaining about all the chaos and the fact that their foods has ran out
ever since the incident that Wilder caused that night. At this point, they are still adamant on
maintaining the hierarchy system in the building, and instead plan to go to the
building's supermarket to get some food. The tenants have been divided into several groups,
each of which will fight to survive the chaos. To achieve their own interests, they no longer pay
mind to their daily occupations, and instead decide to focus solely on this conflict.
Royal's men then go down and accuse Wilder for instigating the chaos, before beating him.
Laing, on the other hand, has a fight with a man over a can of paint, which ends with the man
lying weak on the floor, and Laing successfully taking home the can of paint. After the chaos
at the supermarket dies down, Simmons decides to dump the unconscious Wilder among piles of trash.
Meanwhile, Laing now busies himself with painting his bedroom walls and plans to
isolate himself for a few days. Not long after, the pregnant Helen comes by his apartment,
the two end up in a steamy embrace. This shows how broken the social order has become,
and how the lack of enforced norms nor laws may cause mankind to start acting like animals.
Same goes with Jane, who deliberately offers herself to the tenants of the upper floors.
Wilder, on the other hand, finally regains his consciousness, where he unknowingly comes across
Royal, the owner of the building. This is because Royal has never shown his face to tenants below
the 25th floor. Ergo, Royal casually steps down to the bottom floor to bribe the police,
to keep their mouth shut about all the incidents happening in the high-rise.
Not only that, upon returning to the upper floor, Royal accidentally happens upon Ann, his wife,
getting harassed by upper-floor dwellers.
On the other side of the story, Wilder decides to visit
the room of one of Royal’s servants. He intends to seek some information on the whereabouts of
the owner of the building, which ends up with the revelation that Charlotte’s son, Toby,
is actually Royal’s illegitimate child. Laing and Helen, post-coital, are visited
by a man called Steele. Steele is attracted to see Helen's presence, and says that men
are bartering their wife for food in another floor. Laing then flatly refuses his request by
saying that he is not hungry. As time goes, the situation in the apartment keeps getting worse.
Wilder begins to threaten Charlotte with the information he knows about her and Royal’s son.
He then drags Charlotte into a bedroom and rapes her. Days go by,
the tenants of the upper floors are running out of ideas on how to overcome their hunger.
They reach the point of slaughtering Ann’s horse, with her consent.
Even under such dire conditions, they still opt to stay in the apartment,
testament to their immense greed. They instead choose to sacrifice another creature,
much like how the tenants of the lower floors no longer care about each other’s well-being.
They begin to attack the man who was having sex with their friend's wife during the chaos.
No amenity means anything anymore when one is deprived of everything.
The one party who everyone is supposed to count on merely spends his days,
sleeping without a care in the world about his tenants who have paid for their rights to stay.
Later in the day, Helen gives birth with the help of several individuals, who still have their
heads together.
Meanwhile, her husband is still with his plan and seeking for Royal’s whereabouts.
As it turns out, Laing is invited to a dinner by Royal, accompanied by Charlotte.
As we know,
the delicious dish served for both of them that night is made out of Ann’s horse.
At this point, Royal surmises to Laing that the failure of the high-rise may actually be
a kind of success, a "crucible for change" that could lead residents to escape to a new life.
After the dinner, Wilder manages to sneak into the top floor.
He then spots Royal in the garden, and demands that he confess to
orchestrating the chaos and inequality. Wilder accuses him of hiding behind women and children,
before shooting him with the gun. However, Wilder is not seen as a hero by the women,
and ends up getting killed by them, while Toby watches everything through his kaleidoscope.
Now that Royal is dead, the social order is no longer divided as it was before,
since Royal’s followers have also been killed by the rest of the residents left alive.
Meanwhile, Ann and the other women are happy to care for Helen's baby.
From that day on, Laing plans to build a brand-new way of living in the next high-rise,
that would definitely be better than what came before. But it is all just a fantasy,
for Laing appears to have gone insane, speaking in the third person and talking to the building.
After cooking what is left to eat, he lies down with Charlotte,
reflecting that what has happened will eventually occur in the second tower of the development.
The film concludes with Toby listening to a radio broadcast of Margaret Thatcher,
declaring that wherever there is state capitalism there can never be political freedom.