Well, here's a movie that completely caught me by surprise. It's a movie called The Upside that was originally produced and released at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2017, but finally saw a worldwide release on January 11th of 2019. Boy am I glad this film was finally released to a larger audience. It stars Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston as Dell Scott and Phillip Lacasse respectively. This film is a remake of a 2011 French movie called The Intouchables, a film that dealt with the real life friendship between Phillipe Pozzo di Borgo (a quadriplegic billionaire) and Abdel Sellou (his caregiver). By extension, The Upside also has to do with that relationship, just with different names and in a different setting. And I really enjoyed it, so now I'm gonna talk about it. Let there be spoilers.
First of all, I just wanna say that Kevin Hart completely blew me away with his performance. He was so good! He nails the comedic moments (which was bound to happen since, y'know, he's a comedian), but what really surprised me was how well he handled the dramatic moments. Dell's character development was a joy to behold, and Kevin sold it so well. I really can't praise him enough, he was unbelievable. At the beginning, Dell was a jerk with a heart of gold, but, as the film progresses, his outer shell starts to melt as him and Phillip warm up to each other. This leads to some very heartwarming scenes between the two. Kevin and Bryan have adorable chemistry. Cranston also gives an incredible performance in this movie. He really makes you believe he's a quadriplegic. He plays somebody that can only move his head and his face, but that was all he needed. Bryan absolutely soars in this film, getting a lot of laughs and knocking it out of the park in the dramatic moments. The other actors do great, too. Nicole Kidman did a wonderful job of transforming into Yvonne, so much so that I genuinely didn't know it was Nicole Kidman until I looked up the cast on IMDb afterwards. Aja Naomi King was great, Jahi Di'Allo Winston was great, Julianna Marguiles was great. There wasn't a single bad performance in this movie, not one. The characters that have to react to Phillip and his condition do so realistically, as most people naturally would. I have no complaints about the acting. Everyone was spot-on.
The movie has a lot of funny moments. Naturally, Kevin Hart gets a lot of laughs. One of my favorite of his scenes is the one where Dell uses Phillip's high-tech shower for the first time. Him getting sprayed with water from every angle while classical music blared in the background was hilarious. Dell being taught how to change Phillip's catheter was great, as was the scene when he finally has to do it. There's a brief shot of Dell bathing Phillip that I enjoyed, ending with him saying "You're waterboarding me" about Dell's uncouth way of using the shower head. The entire scene where Phillip was first introduced to weed was both hilarious and heartwarming. He smiles and laughs a lot, he orders 1500 hot dogs, he cracks a lot of jokes, and he's generally just a warmer person when he's high. It comes back later in his birthday party when Phillip approaches Dell and they smoke up together in his bedroom for a few moments before rejoining the guests.Dell telling Yvonne a couple knock knock jokes to try to make her laugh was sweet, and a couple of them were legitimately good jokes to boot. Dell's business ideas were funny, the painting he drew was funny, the fact that someone actually liked the painting enough to buy it is even funnier. Dell's insistence that Aretha Franklin's music is better than Phillip's classical music led to a pretty entertaining running gag, that ended with Phillip playing a cover of "Nessun Dorma" done by Aretha (that I had no idea existed until now). It's a pretty good cover, too.
What really moved me about The Upside was the story. As I mentioned before, the movie centers around the real-life friendship between a quadriplegic and his caregiver. As such, there is a lot of heart in this movie. It's practically oozing with charm. Hart and Cranston spend a lot of time together, and they play off of each other beautifully. You feel every fragment of their friendship. The aforementioned weed scene is adorable cause we see a softer side of Phillip that we don't get to see very often in the rest of the film. I'll say it again, Kevin and Bryan have wonderful chemistry. Dell is a very well-written and well-acted character. He wants the world for his son and he'll do anything to get it for him. Even during moments when he's acting like a complete jerk, you still feel for him because you know he's coming from a good place. And, when we see Dell and his son interacting and bonding, it feels wonderful because you know how hard Dell had been trying to get to that point. The payoff is beautiful, especially when you consider the rocky road. I loved the relationship between Yvonne and Phillip, as well. They go from being the butt of "will they, won't they" jokes from Dell to genuinely warming up to the idea and even (presumably) falling for each other. It's very sweet to watch, and Dell's reaction when it finally happens is just glorious.
The cinematography is wonderful in this movie. If a scene has to have emotion, the camera will be right there with the actors in trying to convey said emotion. The camera almost feels like its own character at times, which is a good thing. There are scenes between Dell and his ex in the beginning and there's a lot of uneasiness between them, so the camera is shaky, unstable, tense, perfectly adding to the emotion of the scenes. As the film progresses, things start smoothing out between them, and the same thing happens to the camera as a result. There's multiple scenes in which the camera will pan down to focus on an object or pan over to show a group of people in the middle of a longtake, it gives off the illusion of there being someone physically there in the room with them filming the conversations, I like it a lot. One other thing I liked here is the screenplay. Cliches aside, this is a relatively well-written movie. Some of the dialogue is good, the jokes are well-written for the most part, the emotional moments are perfect in every way. This is just a well put together movie, okay? I don't know how may other times I can say that.
Last thing I'd like to talk about is the bad stuff. The Upside has a couple downsides, I'm sad to report. That 40% on RottenTomatoes wasn't for nothing. Still a great movie, but it does fall flat on its face on more than one occasion. For starters, the cliches. The age-old "character says they aren't gonna do a thing, only for it to immediately cut to them doing that thing" trope happens here a lot. For example: Phillip says "There's no way this weed will make me high", and then it cuts to him doing the "I'm so high right now" cliches while Dell pushes him down the sidewalk. Dell is presented with a parasailing jacket, he says "No way I'm doing that", and then it immediately cuts to him doing that. That tired gag twice in that scene, once with Phillip and once with Dell. I wasn't aware that was the peak of comedy. Some of the dialogue feels like it was written for a trailer, operatic classical music is used way too much, some of the plot events are painfully predictable, and the ending felt pretty abrupt. There's a really pretty shot of Dell and Phillip parasailing, it cuts to black, the movie gives us the same "These people remained friends forever" line that all of these movies end with, and that's it. It just stops. It didn't feel complete, personally. I'm glad it ended such on a triumphant note, but it honestly just felt like a forced happy ending. Maybe it's because I didn't know anything about the real story going into it (and I haven't seen The Intouchables), but it felt odd to me. I'm probably alone in saying that.
The Upside is a heartfelt, albiet flawed, movie. That being said, there's a lot to like about it. The acting is good, especially from Kevin Hart, the cinematography is astounding, it's oozing with heart and charm. I really enjoyed this movie, although I do understand why people wouldn't like it. I, personally, was able to look past all the hiccups and become completely invested in the story from beginning to end. I'm going to give The Upside an 8.5/10. I don't think there'll be "Best Picture" buzz for this movie next year, but I do hope the Academy recognizes Kevin Hart's marvelous performance. Thank you for reading, I hope to have more content out soon. I've decided that, if I miss a movie in the theater, that I'll either purchase a DVD or wait until the movies come to a streaming service in so I can review them then. I don't intend on missing very many movies this year, so, don't worry, I will be getting to as many as possible this year, even if it takes some longer than others.
