Video review: "The Upside"

“The Upside” is a film of modest ambitions but obvious charms. It stars Kevin Hart doing his adorable false bravado thing, though with a role boasting more shadings than he’s been given before. And it shows off the under-utilized comedic skills of Bryan Cranston, best known for his dramatic roles. (This despite first coming to fame as a sitcom dad.)

Cranston plays Phillip Lacasse, a billionaire investor-turned-author whose life has been on a downward spiral the last few years, losing his wife to cancer and his mobility to a leisure sport accident. Worse yet, his will to live is at a low ebb, despite the bucking up of his faithful executive, Yvonne (Nicole Kidman), who runs his enterprise and watches out for him.

So when it’s time to hire a new “life auxiliary” -- aka personal assistant -- Yvonne knows right away that Dell Scott (Hart) is all wrong for the job. An ex-con who’s only halfheartedly looking for a job; he says and does all the wrong thing. But he impresses Phillip with his attitude, and lands the gig.

You can probably guess where things go: initial disaster followed by bare competence, which grows into a budding friendship that’s due for a major fracture right at the end of the second act. Director Neil Burger and screenwriter Jon Hartmere play things strictly by the numbers, with story beats and emotional catharsis timed down to the audience-tested minute.

And yet, it works. The trio of main actors share genuine warmth with each other, playing character who each have trouble connecting with the greater world in some way.

“The Upside” is a prototypical laughter-and-tears dramedy, a remake of a better French film. It won’t surprise you, but it will entertain.

Bonus features are middling-to-good. They include deleted scenes, a gag reel and five documentary shorts: “Onscreen Chemistry: Kevin and Bryan,” “Creating a Story of Possibility,” “Bridging Divisions,” “Embracing Divisions” and :Presenting a Different Side of Kevin Hart.”

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Review: "The Upside"

I did not expect to enjoy "The Upside" as much as I did. It's an American adaptation of one "The Intouchables," of the highest-grossing French films of all time, which in turn was inspired by a documentary about a real wealthy man who is quadriplegic and bonded with a caretaker of African descent with a troubled past.

It's been "Hollywooded up" to the nth degree, filled with easy emotional entry points and cathartic moments you can almost time with a stopwatch.

And yet, doggone it, I couldn't help being engrossed by the story.

It stars two accomplished funnymen, Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston, who are at different stages of seguing into more dramatic material. Cranston was known -- and dismissed -- for years as "the dad from 'Malcolm in the Middle' before going dark in "Breaking Bad." After a recent Oscar nomination, he's now pretty much universally regarded as a serious actor.

Hart is just taking his first steps along such a path, but I like his stride so far. I wonder if he would ever completely leave behind his stand-up comedian roots in the way that, say, Robin Williams did. I tend to doubt it. But I liked watching him stretch for something more than a laugh.

Hart plays Dell Scott, who's been in and out of prison most of his life. He's currently half-heartedly looking for a job. Asked at a burger joint what his greatest accomplishment is, he says getting out of bed this morning. He's more interested in collecting signatures to prove to his parole officer that he made an effort than actually securing employment.

He wanders into a swanky apartment building after a janitor job and winds up in the penthouse, where billionaire investment expert/author Phillip Lacasse (Cranston) and his right-hand executive, Yvonne (Nicole Kidman), are interviewing candidates to be his "life auxiliary." This is fancy rich-people talk for a 24/7 caretaker, who will do everything from dress, bathe and feed Phillip to being his companion when he goes out in public in his high-end electric chair.

Phillip became a quadriplegic years earlier in a parasailing accident -- if ever there was a quintessentially wealthy person's endeavor, it's parasailing -- and lost his wife to cancer around the same time. Although he has an incredible penthouse, a best-selling book ("The Lateral Way"), a garage full of fancy cars and every wall has expensive art on it, Phillip doesn't have much zest for living anymore.

He impulsively hires the puckish Dell because he's the worst person for the job, and Phillip is looking to die. He instructs Dell about his DNR, immediately followed by explaining what a DNR is.

Dell is an interesting character. He's a guy who has never had much demanded out of him in life, and has fallen down to people's expectations. He's estranged from his son, Anthony (Jahi Di'Allo Winston), and ex-wife, Latrice (Aja Naomi King). Kicked out of his pad and way behind in child custody payments, he steals a book from Phillip's library to give to his son for his birthday.

"Which one?" Anthony demands, knowing that his father probably isn't even aware when it is.

Things go from there. Phillip and Dell slowly form a bond based on harsh truth-telling, which goes both ways. Phillip introduces him to opera and Dell helps him get funky. Yvonne is the hardcase looking for any excuse to fire Dell, but gradually warms up.

There's an implication of a potential romance between Yvonne and Phillip, which they both strenuously deny. The movie, directed by Neil Burger from a screenplay by Jon Hartmere, toys around with the idea without ever giving it a complete workout. I'd like to think they could share a deep and abiding friendship without there having to be romantic entanglements involved.

Meanwhile, Phillip does have a female pen pal he corresponds with, exchanging lovely poetry and sentiments. Phillip dubs it an "epistolary relationship," which is how smart, rich people pronounce "pen pal." Dell encourages him to take the friendship to a new level, but he worries that she'll be put off by "the chair," as he calls it. 

Being a famous mega-wealthy billionaire is kind of a hard thing to hide from Google, which Dell is quick to point out.

If it's possible to really like a movie without necessarily respecting it, then "The Upside" is it. I recognize its shortcomings and lack of higher ambitions. But Cranston, Hart and Kidman are marvelous together. There's genuine chemistry and, eventually, affection between them. I think of the scene where Phillip has been persuaded to attend his own birthday party, and Dell coaxes the wallflower Yvonne to dance. 

The look on Phillip's face as she comes out of her shell is one of pure joy. Rather than lamenting his inability to join in (other than a little melodic wheeling), he's filled with happiness for her chance to express herself in a way normally denied her.

It's hard to be happy for yourself if you can't be happy for others. Even a modestly agreeable flick like "The Upside" understands this.

Reeling Backward: "A Price Above Rubies" (1998)

The title of "A Price Above Rubies" comes from the Song of Solomon. In the most common version, it reads: "Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies."

But there's another reading: "A woman of fortitude who can find? For her price is far above rubies."

Virtue and fortitude are hardly the same thing. In the Biblical reading of virtuous, it basically means a woman who is humble, takes good care of her husband and children, and is utterly subservient in her marriage.

Fortitude means strength of mind -- specifically the ability to endure hardship. It's very much in this second vein that writer/director Boaz Yakin's film explores the cloistered world of New York Hasidic Jews.

Renée Zellweger plays Sonia Horowitz, a young wife who's just given birth to her first child, a boy. She has an arranged marriage with Mendel (Glenn Fitzgerald), a serious religious scholar who literally lives and breaths his Judaism. So serious, in fact, that he resists Sonia's attempts to make their lovemaking a shared experience, instead of the very one-sided, sacred (for him) affair.

(It's a great racket: "Sorry, hon, foreplay is against my religion.")

Sonia rebels, subtly at first but with increasing willpower. She confides her questioning of God's laws (as interpreted by the Jews) to Rebbe Moshe (John Randolph), who is so inspired by this passionate young woman that he goes to his wife (Kim Hunter) to tell her how much he loves her, and how he regrets not showing her any appreciation for the past 20 years.

Unfortunately, Sonia ignited a flame of passion that the old rabbi's body could not contain, and he dies that very night.

Sonia, who was raised by a master jeweler and has the gift herself, is recruited by her brother-in-law Sender (an intense Christopher Eccleston) to work for him. Three days a week she goes into the city to buy the best pieces she can find at a considerable markdown. Three days she works in Sender's "shop" -- a basement establishment that caters to a private clientele on a very exclusive (i.e., untaxed) basis.

Sonia grows in her new role, even as it fuels the split between her and Mendel. It gets to the point where she hardly looks after her son, instead leaving him with her sister-in-law (Julianna Margulies). She also finds herself having an affair with Sender, though it seems less about lust than a transaction -- he grants her some measure of the independence she craves in return for sex.

One day at a shop run by a Pakistani who wouldn't know quality jewelry if he sat on it, Sonia discovers a magnificent gold ring: Hand-crafted and one of a kind. She eventually learns it was made by Ramon (Allen Payne), a lowly assistant at that shop. Sonia tracks him down to his studio, and discovers a great artist in need of a sponsor.

Needless to say, such activities are frowned upon in the Hasidic community, and Sonia finds her self increasing, and eventually completely, ostracized.

I'm a big fan of Yakin's early work -- I repeatedly recommend "Fresh" to any and all who have likely never heard of it -- though he's segued into mainstream pap lately ("Remember the Titans," "Uptown Girls," the screenplay for "Prince of Persia").

"A Price Above Rubies" isn't a particularly good movie, though Zellweger shines in a tough, gritty role that foreshadowed her more serious acting ambitions. This movie came out two years after her breakout role in "Jerry Maguire," and it's a bold and non-commercial choice for an aspiring young performer. (Though one must admit, the pixie-faced actress is about as goy as they come.)

Made by Miramax when the Weinstein brothers were just emerging as a Hollywood powerhouse, "Rubies" reminds me in some ways of "A Serious Man": A painstaking exploration of the nature of Judaism, and how men and women try and often fail to live up to its precepts. I didn't particularly like "Serious Man," either.

2.5 stars out of four