I watched High Life while it still had a really high score on IMDB, and before I started reading user reviews. I really wish I had, because I could have saved myself hours of time. Very few movies make me want a refund, even the very bad ones, and I absolutely feel I need to be paid for the time it stole from me.
Robert Pattinson is a crap actor, but I thought maybe the script or director could have made him all right to watch. Wrong. He's so wooden and mumbled, and I really had no connection to him.
Juliette Binoche attempted to bring herself back to relevancy, but she really shouldn't have bothered. She's not fun, sexy, cruel, or anything that might make her character compelling.
The score (if you can call it that) wears on the nerves almost more than the wailing baby. The visuals and color are just off enough to make the viewer feel odd.
The "story" (and I can't use quotes big enough on that one) is beyond thin. Beyond pathetic. It's some artsy director/writer masturbating about how much smarter they are than the viewer, and how much better a view of the human condition they have. Nothing makes sense, and reading the IMDB trivia about the writer's thinking only makes it worse. "It's about human sexuality." No, it's about you trying to be shocking and edgy and just coming across as vulgar and crass.
For instance, the rape scene seemed tacked on only to have violence and abuse. It didn't fit within the narrative or characters, and the set up to it was so thin that if you blink you'll miss it. I'm still questioning why the girls were zip tied to their bunks.
Slow, boring, nonsensical. A complete void of anything truly artistic, let alone entertaining. Avoid like the plague.
