There Are Few Upsides To Watching The Upside

Technically, The Upside is a remake of a 2012 French movie entitled The Intouchables that, for a while there, became the biggest foreign-language movie of all-time at the worldwide box office. Given how successful it was, an American remake of that French feature was basically inevitable. Remakes have a negative stink about them, but like any genre, they can be good when executed properly. Just look at that seemingly pointless Child's Play remake that ended up being a delight. But in executing this remake of The Intouchables, given the title The Upside, director Neil Burger has delivered essentially a cornball TV movie from the 1980s that somehow managed to show up in 2019 movie theaters. 


Dell Scott (Kevin Hart) is a man in need of a job. Actually, he's in need of a lot of things, including a place to stay and more time spent with his son. While going out for a series of job interviews to appease requirements set by his parole officer, Dell inadvertently stumbles into a paid gig as a life auxiliary caregiver to a wealthy quadriplegic by the name of Phillip Lacasse (Bryan Cranston). Despite the fact that Dell has no experience in this field of employment, he does need the money so he agrees to give the job a shot. This seems like a recipe for disaster, especially if you asked for the perspective of Lacasse's assistant Yvonne (Nicole Kidman), but an unlikely friendship begins to blossom between Dell and Phillip.

Jon Hartmere's screenplay for The Upside is a rigidly formulaic creation that goes through the motions of a typical unlikely buddy comedy movie with shockingly little panache. There's nary a surprise to be found in the narrative even for those who have never seen the original Intouchables movie, it's all so tediously cookie-cutter. Dell and Phillip's friendship goes through all the usual moves (ups, downs, reconciliation, all that jazz) and the script just executes it all with such a half-hearted nature. So many derivative scenes in here will leave you constantly reminded of far better buddy comedy movies you should be watching instead. If the script can't be bothered to care about Del and Phillip, it's hard for me to muster up much enthusiasm for these two unlikely buddies. 

Hartmere's writing also suffers from a strange recurring problem of rarely knowing how to end scenes properly. There's a number of instances of scenes just coming to a close on awkward expository dialogue or just pointless silence. The Upside shifts from scene-to-scene with all the grace of an octopus tap-dancing. This screenplay also can't bother to lend much of a personality to the characters either, particularly Phillip a blank slate of a character who I couldn't describe if you put a gun to my head. Bryan Cranston compliments the writing with one of his most forgettable film performances. How did the guy who played Walter White managed to deliver a lead performance this devoid of distinct personality traits? 

And if you think he's forgettable, just wait until you see the direction by Neil Burger which constantly opts for the most unimaginative shot compositions. For some reason, The Upside has also been filmed with a digital camera and lighting that makes the film, like last Decembers Ben is Back, look like a filmed SNL segment from the mid-2000s. The Upside is a snooze on a visual level and it's pretty much an inoffensive but poorly executed waste otherwise too except for Kevin Hart. In his most serious acting turn yet, Hart actually manages to shed his typical comedic leading man persona effectively and create a wholly new personality for the part of Dell.

It's nowhere near the level of Melissa McCarthy in Can You Ever Forgive Me? or Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love, but Hart does show a solid ability to believably step outside his typical comedic performances with his work in The Upside. In fact, I'd be curious to see him further engage in dramatic performances in far better material than this. It's cool to see Kevin Hart exhibit some range but even that performance of his isn't good enough to make The Upside worth watching. This is handily one of the most forgettable titles I've seen in 2019 and the kind of thing that gives remakes a bad name.