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★★★☆☆
3 January 2018
A movie review of THE UPSIDE. |
“Have you ever taken care of anybody?” Phillip (Bryan Cranston)
A completely unnecessary remake of the French film, THE INTOUCHABLES (2011), but THE UPSIDE ends up winning you over with charisma and charm. Of course it helps that Bryan Cranston, Kevin Hart and Nicole Kidman are part of the cast. Based on a true story, but transported to America, it is about a bromance across class, race and disability. Okay, it is sentimental (which normally I intensely dislike), but the film does not patronise. When you look at your dearest amigos, what do they all have in common? THE UPSIDE touches on, with broad brushstrokes, what true friendship is: The ability to be painfully honest with one another, loyalty, and your life enhanced because they are in it.
A completely unnecessary remake of the French film, THE INTOUCHABLES (2011), but THE UPSIDE ends up winning you over with charisma and charm. Of course it helps that Bryan Cranston, Kevin Hart and Nicole Kidman are part of the cast. Based on a true story, but transported to America, it is about a bromance across class, race and disability. Okay, it is sentimental (which normally I intensely dislike), but the film does not patronise. When you look at your dearest amigos, what do they all have in common? THE UPSIDE touches on, with broad brushstrokes, what true friendship is: The ability to be painfully honest with one another, loyalty, and your life enhanced because they are in it.
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The original movie verses the remake:
Philippe (François Cluzet) -> Phillip (Bryan Cranston)
Driss (Omar Sy) -> Dell (Kevin Hart)
Yvonne (Anne Le Ny) -> Yvonne (Nicole Kidman)
Philip is a corporate troubleshooter. Living in a palatial Manhattan penthouse, he is clearly successful. Taking companies and making them more profitable, one wonders whether he is an ethical businessman. In times of the growing wealth divide, cinema’s depiction of the moneyed is ever more important. If you are baffled at this observation, check out documentaries such as THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES (2015) and SAVING CAPITALISM (2017). THE UPSIDE does not examine Phillip’s professional side. The audience can only glean his morality from the lovely household surrounding him (reminding of British comedy television show, ON THE UP, which ran from 1990-92). Phillip’s staff comes across as equals, as a burgeoning family, cemented by the arrival of Kevin Hart’s character. Later, Phillip screws over his snobby neighbour Carter (Tate Donovan), through an obvious dis on the pretentiousness of certain aspects of the art world. These go to give him the benefit of the doubt.
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Philip is suicidal. Time is taken to find out how he became a quadriplegic, and what happened to his wife. Giving up on life has turned him cantankerous. Firing his live-in carer, technically labelled a “life auxiliary”, executive right hand Yvonne (Nicole Kidman) begins the search for a replacement. Candidates range from the qualified to the comically earnest. In error, newly paroled Dell (Kevin Hart) is present for the evaluation. Philip overrules Yvonne to give Dell the gig. As to why, Phillip will not say.
“Find something you love doing, and scale it,” Phillip advises Dell. You can guess what unfolds. A mismatched duo, humorously rubbing up against each other, unknowingly teaching the other a version of self-belief they both require. Clichés raise their heads. THE UPSIDE is a predictable bromance remake, of a predictable bromance French film. Yet it still made me enjoy the experience.
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