How Do We Upgrade Upgraded?

Before Ana flies to England, her sister’s fiancé, Ronnie, tells her not to get seduced by London’s ‘big clocks and pirate accents.’ We know from every other rom-com that this is just impossible. American studios treat London with mythic respect, choosing to ignore the hobbling pervs, graffiti, and asbestos so they can keep the ‘tea and crumpet’ illusion going. It is always the same: lush, massive hotels, intense pub life, ‘charming’ accent, Trafalgar Square, mushy peas—if you throw in a good-looking, wealthy man who chooses to work with children because he’s so lovely (Jude Law in The Holiday is the benchmark), you’re looking at a box-office slam dunk, in 2005. A film like Upgraded would’ve killed, but now this programmer is stuck on Amazon Prime, spewing British propaganda from a distance.

What a shame, as it’s this type of film that makes movie stars, and Camila Mendes is being made here. She plays Ana, an art history graduate, stuck living with her sister and her sister’s fiancé, unable to make ends meet, on the verge of being sent home and joining the navy (this is brought up a strange amount, even though it’s not really an ultimatum). Ana works at an art gallery under the watchful eye of Claire Dupont, a stern Marisa Tomei, who is doing a beautifully camp rendition of Edna Mode. Thanks to another intern messing up, Ana is given the opportunity to fly to London and help close a big sale, and on the plane ride there, she meets William (Archie Renaux), whom she lies about her job. They quickly fall for each other. Now, Ana has to run around London, balancing this lie, her work, and the newfound respect she is getting from elites who see her as new blood in the art world.

Typical rom-com stuff, yes, and Mendes works her magic to elevate otherwise terribly schlocky material. She starts as the ultimate underdog to Suzette (Rachel Matthews) and Renee (Fola Evans-Akingbola), our Bratz-level antagonists who torment Ana any chance they get. The two of them just can’t get enough of it: making Ana come to the airport 4 hours before her flight, booking her into the worst seats and worst hotels, the ultimate slay queens. Their interactions with Mendes and Tomei are undoubtedly the best part of Upgraded, partly due to the fact that they are so easy to hate but also because this group of four women are the only ones on the right tonal wavelength.

We’re looking at a movie that’s 20% rom, 80% com, and the line between the two is emboldened and heavily underlined. There is a comedic scene, then a massive brick wall, then a romantic scene, and there is no overlap there at all. This makes what Suzette, Renee, and Claire are doing even funnier in contrast because we’ll go from that to some naturalistic dialogue about suede shoes, though it feels completely unintentional. Strangely, this means that the leading duo’s relationship is at such a disconnect with everything because they’re written realistically, so the focus of the movie changes to weird art gallery politics. It really doesn’t help matters that there’s no chemistry between Ana and Will, who force it through like a nasty fart. The good news for Mendes is that she’s able to give so many different modes that this is essentially filling five spots on her CV. The bad news is that the film feels stop/start and is unable to keep its rhythm with all of the strange tone shifts. 

In this way, it’s perfect streaming. The lulls give you enough time to go to the toilet and get a drink, and by the time you’re back, Marisa Tomei is pulling a weird face again, or maybe you’re looking at back-drops of London and thinking, ‘Wow, what an amazing city.’ You can’t ignore Robbie’s warning at the beginning either, because what else is there to do in those down moments of watching a romance that feels pre-recorded? Mendes is obviously moving on to bigger and better things; it’s just hard to watch such a waste of potential for a film that could’ve been Upgraded so easily.