* This post may contain spoiler alerts.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (7 Stars)
The Upside is a comedic look at the relationship between a wealthy man with quadriplegia and an unemployed man with a criminal record who's hired to help him.*
The movie is so much more than the short plot stated above. It is about an unlikely friendship between two grown men with different backgrounds, different interests, and very different personalities. And most importantly, the movie is based on a true story (how much of that is true, well you will have to do some research to find out because I have no idea).
This movie really surprised me in a lot of ways. Let's start with the first thing that happened for me in the movie. I laughed. Then I laughed a bit more and kept laughing through the whole movie. It is generally a funny feel-good movie. This was a surprise to me (even though how could Kevin Hart do a movie that didn't have some humor in it?) because it is based on a true story about this mans quadriplegic life. How could that be funny?
The movie had a strong storyline that kept you in the movie. I personally love it when movies do this because it makes you forget everything else in life and just focus on the story being told. That is when you know you are watching a good movie. And for the first time in months, I finally felt emotionally connected to a movie and actually teared up a little bit (let's be real, Aquaman didn't bring the tears).
Like always, we can't talk about this movie without talking about the amazing leading cast - Kevin Hart, Bryan Cranston, and Nicole Kidman. Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston were a very unlikely duo but it worked really well. They both equally delivered jokes, emotion, and heart to their roles. The lovely Nicole Kidman did a great job playing the stern secret lover of Bryan Cranston's character, Phillip Lacasse. All three leads were accompanied by the wonderful supporting cast including Golshifteh Farahani, Julianna Margulies, Suzanne Savoy, and Michael Quinlan.
PSA: I will say if you just lost a loved one and were their primary caregiver, you might want to hold off on this movie for a few months. As someone that lost someone very close to them, I found it hard at times not to have my mind drift off to some of the memories I had.
Sidebar: I have to tell you what happened at the theater right before and as the movie was starting. I typically try to see movies on Wednesday's as I enjoy no one being in the theater talking or looking at their cell phones during the movie. Right before the movie started, two women came into the theater and didn't know where to sit (or that their tickets had seating assignments on them) and just picked a place to sit. As they were picking, one of the women was just tickled to death that the seats were recliners and had to tell me this even though I was already sitting with my feet up (most of the theaters in town have been reclining theaters for two years too).
Then right after the movie started an older couple comes into the theater and again the wife was just tickled that the seats reclined but couldn't figure out how to make it happen. She turned her cell phone on trying to find the button while asking me if I could help her figure out her seat. After she figured it out, she then had to tell her (who I would guess is) husband how to do it as well. It was like they hadn't gone to a movie in years because the (maybe) husband started complaining about 3/4 of the way through the movie that all the butter was gone in his popcorn and she kept talking to him about what was happening in the movie. Typically Wednesday's are quiet...not this week.
Did you see The Upside? Let me know in the comments below what you liked and disliked about the movie.
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