Movie Review: Upside Down (2012)

This is a review of the film Upside Down starring Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe, Cloud Atlas) and Kirsten Dunst (Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, Melancholia).
In general a review introduces a movie or book, tries and explain the plot, and then outlines the reviewer’s opinion of it, and if you thought this introduction was superfluous and annoying, then you are in for a treat with the first ten to fifteen minutes of Upside Down.

Not since the original theatrical cut of Dark City has there been such an egregious info dump of background and plot which thoroughly breaks the “show, don’t tell” rule of screenwriting. I don’t know whether this introduction by Jim Sturgess’ terribly earnest character Adam, was part of the original script, or was tacked on later to explain the world of Upside Down in greater detail, but as this prologue is provided mostly in voiceover using abstract graphics, I would expect the latter.

As this introduction explains, in the world of the film there exists two Earths, located so close to each other that travel between the affluent “Up Top” and the poverty stricken “Down Below“ is easily possible via bridge or even a long rope. This magical idea provides a rich source for some unique and beautiful imagery; however, like that voiceover narration at the beginning, things starts to get complicated very quickly by the introduction of “The Rules”. Matter from one world always feels the pull of gravity of the world from which it originates, so if you visit “Up Above” from “Down Below” you’ll always be standing on their ceiling while they look down at you, and if you were to jump out the window you would fall the thousands of feet “down” to your home world. The gravity of your home world can be mitigated using ballast from the opposite world, however if material from the two worlds comes into contact for two long it gets superheated and can even burst into flame.

With the explanation of these rules a fanciful idea gets horribly complicated before we’ve even met out protagonists, and once the plot truly begins then we have to sit through another info dump about how Adam met Kirsten Dunst’s Eden (not Eve) as children, and were forcibly separated, finally leading to the real meat of the film: Adam’s quest to reunite with Eden.

Adam’s journey provides a lot of impressive scenery, as he joins Transworld, the only company that operates in both worlds and physically connects the two via a central tower, in order to find Eden. We are presented with Adam’s commute through poverty stricken “Down Below”, which looks like a bombed out European city from World War II, where oil seems to rain from the sky, to the gleaming spire of Transworld, wherein lies rows upon rows of lowly workers from “Down Below” in their old fashion work coats, sitting in contrast to the more affluent, sharply dressed “Up Above” staff sitting on the ceiling.

The offices of Transworld

At times Upside Down is a very beautiful movie with images ripe for desktop backgrounds; scenes of the clouds of both worlds swirling over opposing mountains ranges, the gleaming city of “Up Above” contrasted with the destitute “Down Below” and at times the film is almost monochrome in its use of colour, not quite black and white, more teal and orange hues, and it’s obvious that the director Juan Diego Solanas has an eye for striking imagery and ideas, such as ruins of an airship (presented without explanation later in the film) once held aloft using blocks from the opposing world; the denizens of Down Below stealing metal from “Up Above” in order to heat their meagre homes, and bees that move between both worlds producing nectar that is native to both.

The mountains of “Down below” and “Up Abvove”

As for the plot, once Adam finally starts executing his plans to get “Up Above” and reintroduce himself into Eden’s life, there is plenty of tension as he has to contend with the difficulties using “Up Above” material as ballast to weigh him down to the floor, managing the constant heating issues and trying to rekindle his romance with Eden all the while as avoiding the authorities who wish to keep the two worlds apart at all costs, however, after one to many escapes the antagonists starts to come off as hapless keystone cops. Only in the last section of the film does some real menace come into play before being handily banished by a rushed ending.

If it hasn’t been made clear so far, almost all of this is told from the perspective of Jim Sturgess’s Adam, and he has to carry most of the movie on his shoulders. Sturgess manages this amicably enough with his scruffy hair and ragamuffin charm, but it really takes two characters to create a good love story, and as Dunsts’ character undergoes a “motivational reset” early in the film in order to complicate proceedings, this leaves her with little to do.

As for the supporting cast Timothy Spall (Wormtail from the Harry Potter series, Secrets & Lies) joins Sturgess in looking like he had a whale of a time playing a friendly resident of “Up Above”, but only James Kidnie (Fringe, Mimic) as a moustache twirling “Up Above” manger stands out otherwise.

Ultimately, despite some nice vistas, the film left me cold, its central love story failing to ignite the screen and never really recovering from that initial info dump.
Upside Down should be on limited release in the USA from 15 March 2013 and has already released in numerous other markets worldwide.