'Upgraded' masters the art of troubling mediocrity
Amazon
Huge news for anyone who hated how the recent Netflix confection “Love at First Sight” featured characters navigating a sincere connection and refused to include cheap villains or teeter on an embarrassing mound of contrived garbage: “Upgraded” is in many ways the same movie, with sweetness and honesty replaced by cliches and lies. Of course, there are also pieces of “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Cinderella” and countless other superior and forgettable romantic comedies. But there’s duplicating assets and there’s sitting on the copy machine.
None of this is Camila Mendes’ (“Riverdale”) fault; saddled with a role asking her to be deceitful, ungrateful, pretentious, and yet still appealing, Mendes is as charming as possible as Ana, a broke underling at a snooty New York auction house run by exactly the sort of generically demanding and humorless boss you’d expect in this scenario. (The character of Claire is played by Marisa Tomei, which is less expected and amusing for a couple seconds.) After Ana stands out for reasons not worth trying to explain, Claire asks her to tag along as her third assistant on a trip to London, naturally setting up Ana for a meet-cute at the airport with rich, entirely flaw-free hunk William (Archie Renaux of “Morbius”) and a never-ending succession of increasingly groan-worthy inevitabilities.
This ranges from the two being seated next to each other on the plane to Ana falsely claiming to be the director of her company’s New York office (which is Claire’s job) to the dynamic that unfolds with William’s actress mother (Lena Olin) and a famous artist (Anthony Head of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” having fun). Occasionally Ana’s bothered by Claire’s other two assistants (Rachel Matthews, Fola Evans-Akingbola), the movie’s evil stepsisters, but is able to slip away whenever she wants despite being slammed with work. When her friend (Saoirse-Monica Jackson) compares Ana to Hannah Montana relatively early in the shenanigans, it should be more than a hint that things are not about to improve.
Directed by Carlson Young without a shred of comic timing from a script by three writers whose insights about honesty could learn a lot from “Muppet Babies,” “Upgraded” practically slides off its seat before Ana even arrives in London — and then barely pretends to be awake for the rest of the trip, leaning on types and absurdities instead of people and complications. Let’s just be as direct as possible: this is a stupid story, handled terribly.
I’d call “Upgraded” charmless except that would include the word harmless, and this movie isn’t, not by the time it — spoiler alert, kinda — very clearly sides with getting ahead by any means necessary while erasing the film’s most clearheaded moment: when Will identifies Ana’s behavior that showed him, beyond merely her deception, what kind of person she is. Sheesh, the last decade should have shown people that casual dishonesty and false realities shouldn’t just be shrugged off.
It’s easy to mock reality dating shows, but some of them succeed at sorting out who you think someone is from who they actually are while pursuing the compatibility and stability needed at the center. Movies like “Upgraded” are like the worst of the dating shows: dumb people doing dumb stuff, learning nothing of value and giving us no reason to think they’ll be happy for long after the credits roll. I get it; anyone watching this just wants something light and fluffy. But light and fluffy isn’t supposed to leave such a bad taste in your mouth.
D
NEW: WANT TO SETTLE A MOVIE DEBATE, TALK ABOUT '90S FAVORITES, OR EVEN HAVE YOUR SHORT HOME MOVIE REVIEWED? BOOK A VIDEO FROM MATT VIA CAMEO
ORDER “TALK ‘90S WITH ME: 23 UNPREDICTABLE CONVERSATIONS WITH STARS OF AN UNFORGETTABLE DECADE”
Matt’s new book arrived Sept. 27, 2022, and Richard Roeper raves: “Matt Pais deserves four stars for reintroducing us to many of the greatly talented but often unsung heroes of 1990s film. This is a terrific read.”
ARE YOU A “SAVED BY THE BELL” FAN?
Order “Zack Morris Lied 329 Times! Reassessing every ridiculous episode of ‘Saved by the Bell’ … with stats” (featuring interviews with 22 cast members, plus the co-founder of Saved by the Max and the creator of “Zack Morris is Trash”)
GET 100 STORIES FOR JUST $4.99