Delayed Reaction: The Upside

Premise: A rich quadriplegic man hires an untrained new caretaker.

 

(Club 50) This is a remake of the French megahit from 2012, The Intouchables. I'm glad I saw The Intouchables first, because it is the better movie and has a better star performance, but it's hard to watch The Upside without being fully aware of all the differences. It's an easy enough idea to translate from French to English. It's about this specific friendship dynamic. There's not much plot. I'm not offended by the idea of remaking the movie. While it isn't that hard to read subtitles, something is lost when watching something in a language you don't know. And the beats of the story aren't culturally specific.

 

In terms of a comparison, the big thing that The Upside is missing versus The Intouchables is that Omar Sy is a much different movie star than Kevin Hart. Sy was much younger than Hart. Sy relies more on charisma, and Hart is more of a comic persona. The thing that made The Intouchables lightning in a bottle, Kevin Hart doesn't have, even though he's not bad in The Upside.

 

The Upside was a hit, just not a phenomenon. Kevin Hart gives a more reserved performance than he normally does. I don't think he's got dramatic performances in him like Adam Sandler, but I like that he's trying to expand his range. The movie does need someone like a Bryan Cranston to made the quadriplegic role sing. It's a lot of face-only acting. I understand many of the calculations behind the changes in The Upside, but they were mostly less interesting. Cranston's life is a lot less messy. No kids and he's in love with his assistant/helper/manager (whatever Nicole Kidman is). Giving Hart the kid gives his character more of a direction.

 

The whole time I'm watching this, I could feel the filmmakers trying to navigate around "white savior narrative" critiques. The real-life story is imbalanced in tricky ways. The black man is the employee. The white man has all the money. However, the white man literally can't eat without the black man's help. Tricky power dynamics. The movie does sidestep the racial concerns as much as it can. When it has to address it, I think it mostly stays on the right side of the discussion.

 

The Upside is a great example of how no one really understands the formula to a good movie. The Intouchables is this screenplay and film that was pieced together until it worked. It was an original story (although based on real life). They got to build it from whatever odd story elements worked. The Upside, on the other hand, had a specific formula to work from that it tinkered with. I think of it like this. When preparing food, changing a recipe isn't as simple as making every step 5% different. Some parts should be left the same. Others should be altered. But it's not clear how much each step should or shouldn't change. In other words, The Upside definitely tastes like a good apple pie, but it's not my Grandmother's Apple Pie.

 

Side Note: The funny thing is, I only mildly enjoyed The Intouchables too. It probably sounds like I loved that movie the way I'm comparing it to The Upside.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend