6.5/10
I never realized how boring our single planet is in its
orbit around the sun. In the solar
system in Upside Down, there are two planets that share the same orbit,
one right on top of the other. There is
no sky to look up to on these planets; when you look up, you just see the other
planet’s surface. Their names are also
indicative of their respective social status, identity, and overall general
welfare. There is Down Below and Up
Above.
In space, there is no up or down, left or right. On these two planets though, the one known as Down Below is
grey, cold, and seems to rain a sort of heavy crude oil substance. On Up Above, it is sunny, people have money,
and at night their lights shine bright while Down Below is mostly dark. There are a lot of echoes of East vs. West Berlin. Even the cars on Down Below resemble the emblematic East German Trabant.
There are some physical rules on the two planets concerning
gravity. If you are born on Down Below,
your personal gravity belongs to that planet.
If you somehow make it Up Above, you will just float back to Down
Below. There are other rules, but it is
best not to spend too much time memorizing them, it may take you right out of
the film.
Adam (Jim Sturgess) is from Down Below and Eden (Kirsten
Dunst) is from Up Above. Notice the
symbolism there? Adam and Eden? As kids, they lived in the mountains, which
are the closest points between the two worlds.
They are able to look up/down at each other and talk. Eventually, they use ropes to climb/descend
and they fall in love. This is
forbidden. There are border police whose
job it is to prevent any mixing of regular folks between the worlds.
The one spot where the two worlds legally intersect is in
the massive Transworld office building, which has two foundations, one on each
of the worlds. The building has a floor
0 right in the middle where desks face each other as if in a mirror. Transworld is something like Exxon/Mobil or
BP. They are from Up Above, transport
and refine Down Below’s oil, and sells it back to them at inflated costs they
cannot afford.
Adam spends the majority of the film trying to discover a
way to be with Eden. This is trickier
than the standard plot of star cross’d lovers from two warring families; this
is two different gravities. Upside
Down’s story sounds complex but it is quite simple if you leave out the
physics. If you start thinking about
planetary rotation, atmospheres, etc… you will be in trouble.
Upside Down is fascinating because of what it looks like. I have never seen anything
like it; Inception is the closest comparison. The camera frequently switches between what
you think is up and down. People are the
floor, no, people are on the ceiling. Adam falls out of one ocean and into another. The visual effects budget must have dwarfed every other department by a
mile on this shoot. There are times
where these tricks are not as convincing such as Adam’s office cubicle and his
interactions with his Up Above office buddy, Bob (Timothy Spall), but it is still fun to watch.
However, when they are outside, it is gorgeous. There is a chase scene between the two
planets on a mountain top where you cannot tell who is on what world or who is
looking up and who is looking down that is one of the more spellbinding scenes
I have seen in a long time. If only the
story were a bit stronger. The film
spends all of its time focused on Adam and his quest to be together with Eden
that the movie forgets all about Eden.
We see her from time to time but we know nothing at all about her.
Upside Down has a very unique and creative screenplay full of original
ideas. Its visuals are absolutely
stunning. Perhaps the filmmakers ran out
of money making it so appealing to our eyes, they forgot to make it as
appealing to our minds. In the end,
there is no weight to ground all the ideas floating around here.
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