Reworked story lifts ‘The Upside’
The Upside Rated: PG-13 for suggestive content and drug use. Running time: 126 minutes. 666 out of 4
“The Upside" is based on a French film called “Intouchables” (2011), about the real life story of a very rich quadriplegic who develops an unlikely friendship with the young, irreverent ex-con that he hires to take care of him. It became the second biggest box office success in French history and made $300 million in Europe, but when it finally got released in the United States, riding a wave of advance publicity, the movie’s success seemed baffling. It was OK. That’s all.
“The Upside” is better. Screenwriter Jon Hartmere takes the original script and Americanizes it in two ways. First, the obvious, he moves the action from Paris to New York City. Second, he fixes the story, giving it a tight structure, so that even though the remake is 13 minutes longer than the original, it seems shorter. Along the way, he eliminates much of the original’s corniness and all of its sentimentality, and he crafts several superb scenes that were nowhere in that original version.
French cinema has a lot going for it, but the one thing Americans do best is story. And so “Intouchables,” now “The Upside,” has a story that finally works.
Bryan Cranston plays the rich quadriplegic and Kevin Hart plays the man he hires. Cranston is about what you’d expect, and that’s a good thing; but Hart is not at all what you’d expect here, and that’s a good and interesting thing. Despite the movie’s light tough, Hart has an essentially straight role, so that even in the funny scenes, he’s pretty much reactive. And most of the time, he has no laughs at all to fall back on.
As Dell, Hart plays an ex-con, still on probation, with an estranged wife and son, and he seems to carry with him a combination of self-disgust, anger and shame. To his benefit, he retains some of the resiliency of just being Kevin Hart — but he has none of Hart’s usual exuberance. He just seems like a rough, unhappy guy, and if you know where the movie has to go, you can’t help but wonder, in the early scenes, how on earth will the rich man want to hire him.
The screenplay devises an effective reason: Philip (Cranston) hires Dell because he’s the least qualified candidate. The movie hints that maybe Philip would like to die and sees Dell as an easy way to off himself. At the same time, there’s another motive lurking beneath the surface. Philip really does want to live, and he sees in Dell some of the life force he needs. His choice of Dell is his way of choosing life, without consciously knowing it.
Nicole Kidman has the movie’s third important role, as Philip’s business manager, and it just so happens that another Kidman film, “Destroyer,” is also opening today. What a terrific actress. Her performance here would be effective on its own, playing a woman of kindness, gentleness, competence, orderliness, carefulness, someone who probably folds her jeans like Japanese organizing consultant and author Marie Kondo. But to see her within 48 hours of seeing her haunted, ruined, disheveled and violent in “Destroyer” is to be both in awe of her range and impressed by the one way she makes the two roles overlap — in the realm of deep, barely expressed feeling.
Speaking of powerful women on screen, Julianna Margulies shows up for a single scene, which turns out to be one of the best in the film, the one in which Philip meets his pen pal for the first time. It’s a dinner scene that hinges on a single two-second shot, effectively placed by director Neil Burger. I’d tell you more, but that would wreck it.