FilmSnobReviews

Title: Upgraded
MPA Rating: R
Director: Carlson Young
Starring: Camila Mendes, Archie Renaux, Marisa Tomei
Runtime: 1 hr 44 mins

What It Is: Ana (Mendes) is a down on her luck art graduate. She works at one of New York City’s finest art galleries. This gallery is run by her perfection boss Claire (Tomei). When Ana makes some bold moves at work she catches Claire’s eye…leading here to make a trip to England with her. On this trip she meets the handsome William (Renaux). The two hit it off…after a rather unfortunate Bloody Mary incident. Ana, however, isn’t forthright in the details of who she is exactly and what she does. And so here come the fireworks when it all comes crashing down.

What We Think: Camila Mendes is very charming. She can’t make this film work. It’s not bad it just isn’t very good. I love Carlson Young as a director. She always seems to put a lot of herself in her films. She is also infinitely charming. Much in the way this film is. Marisa Tomei is lovely and normally I’ll just take her performance, whatever it may be at face value. I can’t do that here. She’s kinda awful in this. Her accent throughout threw me off and I found it really unpleasant. At it’s core this is a romantic comedy with a nice spin to it.

Our Grade: C+, There’s a lot of things that sort of “fall in line” with the traditional romantic comedy. This is interesting because if you look at Carlson Young’s previous film The Blazing World is SUCH a unique piece that this as a follow up is…well…really interesting. Amazon seems to be taking risks on little tiny movies and hoping they’ll break out. This is one that could’ve I just don’t think it has the reach they thought it did. Either way it’s a fun little watch that’s easy to find.