Movie Review: Upgraded (2024)

Genre: Romantic Comedy  

Director: Carlson Young  

Starring: Camila Mendes, Lena Olin, Marisa Tomei  

Running Time: 104 minutes  

Synopsis: In New York, Ana (Camila Mendes) is a junior trainee at the Erwins art auction house led by the demanding Claire (Marisa Tomei). On a flight to London, Ana flirts with the dashing William (Archie Renaux), and plays along when he mistakes her for a senior executive. In London she meets William's mother Catherine (Lena Olin), a wealthy widow about to sell an expensive art collection. Ana enjoys a romance with William and races to satisfy Claire's whims, but her lies threaten both her love life and her career.

What Works Well: This bright romantic comedy mixes elements from Working Girl with The Devil Wears Prada, and benefits from the prestige of Marisa Tomei and Lena Olin in key supporting roles. Elsewhere, Camila Mendes sells the premise of the resourceful up-and-comer leveraging an unexpected opportunity to skip a few steps along the corporate ladder, and director Carlson Young almost resists the temptation of polishing London into a dream romantic destination. 

What Does Not Work As Well: All the usual coincidences and misunderstandings required to kick the genre machinery into gear are here, starting with Ana's fortuitous meeting with the son of her employer's most important client, passing through the lovers' big argument, and ending with the requisite tidying up of all loose ends. Archie Renaux struggles in the handsome prince role, and the chemistry between the leads is confined to telemovie levels of blandness.

Conclusion: Romantic banter at 30,000 feet still has on-the-ground consequences.



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Movie Review: Chocolat (2000)

A tender drama with sprinkles of humour and romance, Chocolat is a playful story about the winds of change.

The setting is 1959 in rural France. Life in the small riverfront village of Lansquenet centres around the church, and the mayor Comte de Reynaud (Alfred Molina) ensures long-held traditions are respected. Free-spirited expert chocolatier Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche) and her young daughter Anouk drift into town. Vianne rents vacant premises in the town square from the crusty Armande (Judi Dench) and dares to open her chocolate shop in the middle of Lent. 

The Comte is not impressed by the unmarried mother causing a stir in his community, but Vianne sets out to win hearts through her chocolate creations, and befriends Armande, who is on bad terms with her daughter Caroline (Carrie-Anne Moss). Vianne also helps Josephine (Lena Olin), who is stuck in an abusive marriage. The arrival of a band of river gypsies led by Roux (Johnny Depp) further disrupts the town, and Reynaud increases his efforts to drive those he deems undesirable out of town.

An adaptation of the Joanne Harris book, Chocolat is a whimsical experience. Director Lasse Hallström and writer Robert Nelson Jacobs craft a fairly predictable but still enjoyable light-hearted drama with a fairy-tale ethos. Aided by winning performances and an isolated but still vibrant locale, Vianne's adventures carry transformational themes into intimate encounters.

While never overbearing, serious issues infuse the drama with substance, with a focus on women at life's various stages. The elderly Armande is clinging to vivacious ideals despite a serious health crisis, while Josephine is the community's prospective outcast, a woman veering towards irrationality due to abuse. Both stories use poignancy to affirm a woman's right to break loose of expectations, especially when suffering.

More broadly, Vianne representing secular modernity clashing with religious traditions. She shuns local conventions, and later Roux joins her as a free spirit equally dismissive of the old ways. Although Vianne makes no attempt to bridge the divide, Hallström unquestionably - and rather simplistically - aligns his sympathies with the winds of renewal, and portrays the Compte as an antagonistic relic.

But delving deeper, Vianne's chocolate recipes and backstory are derived from ancient Mayan traditions, and so also carry the weight of history, but from a different culture and another corner of the world. Chocolat becomes an intriguing contrast between two keys to the heart, both mystical, but at least superficially incompatible.

In addition to the central stories featuring Armande and Josephine, Vianne's chocolates help one couple regain a sexual spark, and encourage one man (and his dog) to pursue a romance with a widow (Leslie Caron), both side-stories adding moments of levity. The performances merge with the impish mood, Juliette Binoche setting the tone for the women-dominated cast by knowingly investing in confections as gateways to the soul. Chocolat tilts to the sweet side, but is nevertheless irresistible.



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Movie Review: Devil You Know (2013)

A mystery drama about a simmering conflict between a mother-daughter pair of actresses, Devil You Know is hysterically botched. 

Glamorous movie actress Kathryn Vale (Lena Olin) has not appeared on film for 10 years, ever since her husband Maximilian was shot dead. His murderer was never found and rumours swirled that Kathryn was somehow involved. Now her daughter Zoe Hughes (Rosamund Pike) is embarking on a movie acting career, while Kathryn publishes an autobiography and launches a comeback.

Her current husband is screenwriter Jake Kelly (Dean Winters), and he is carrying on an affair with Zoe. Meanwhile Kathryn's personal assistant Edie (Molly Price) resents Kathryn's attempted return to the spotlight. When threatening letters accusing Kathryn of murder start to arrive, her comeback plans are threatened and sordid secrets from the past are revealed.

Filmed in 2005, shelved, then unleashed on an unsuspecting world in 2013, Devil You Know was probably only released because Jennifer Lawrence achieved fame in Winter's Bone (2010), The Hunger Games (2012) and Silver Linings Playbook (2012). Here she appears in brief flashback snippets as the young version of Rosamund Pike's character, and has no spoken lines.

The film is a misguided attempt at a neo-noir thriller vaguely inspired by the Johnny Stompanato homicide. Written by Alex Michaelides and directed by James Oakley, Devil You Know has the plastic production values and wooden dialogue delivery of a daytime soap opera. The choppy editing, some out-of-focus frames, and a running time of just 76 minutes suggest an incomplete project, but padded with bewildering shots fetishizing women's legs.

The available budget was spent on wardrobe to dress Olin and Pike in 1940s-inspired outfits. Otherwise the set designs and dialogue exchanges emit the whiff of locations rented by the hour and one-take expediency. Despite Olin and Pike wrestling as best as they can with the material, the characters never come to life, and the plot disintegrates into a stagy and cheap Agatha Christie-like small collection of suspects staring at each other and wondering what to do next.

Devil You Know is best left unknown.



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The Movies Of Lena Olin

All movies starring Lena Olin and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

The Unbearable Lightness Of Being (1988)

Chocolat (2000)

The Reader (2008)

Remember Me (2010)

Night Train To Lisbon (2013)

Devil You Know (2013)

Upgraded (2024)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: The Unbearable Lightness Of Being (1988)

A three-way grand romance set against the Prague Spring, The Unbearable Lightness Of Being explores life's profound choices through tumultuous personal relationships.

It's 1968, and the winds of political freedom appear to sweep through Prague. Tomas (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a charismatic doctor and an irresistible sexual magnet to all women, although he is closest to Sabina (Lena Olin), a free-spirited artist. Neither of them are interested in commitment, although they are soul mates in every other way.

Tomas: I must go.
Sabina: Don't you ever spend the night at the woman's place?
Tomas: Never!
Sabina: What about when the woman's at your place?
Tomas: I tell her I have insomnia... anything. Besides, I have a very narrow bed.
Sabina: Are you afraid of women, Doctor?
Tomas: Of course.

On a trip to a countryside spa to perform surgery, Tomas is entranced by young and innocent waitress Tereza (Juliette Binoche). The feeling is mutual, she follows him to Prague and they are soon married. She finds work as a photographer and he quickly resumes his philandering ways. Just as Tereza is reaching her tolerance breaking point Soviet tanks rumble into the city, crushing any hopes of liberty. First Sabina and then Tomas and Tereza relocate to Geneva. Sabina meets and starts a relationship with married professor Franz (Derek de Lint), but starting a new life in a foreign country will not be easy and Prague will exert a powerful pull.

Milan Kundera's novel was published in 1984, and four years later director Philip Kaufman brought it to the screen with a script by Jean-Claude Carrière. While Kundera did not approve of the adaptation, The Unbearable Lightness Of Being is a masterful cinematic achievement, a dreamy composition drenched in European sensibility and perfectly deploying the classic romance within upheaval template. Running close to three hours, the pace is luxurious and the visuals rich with the texture of Prague, politics and personal passions.

Through the story of Tomas' love for both Sabina and Tereza and the women's mutual appreciation of their roles in his life, Kaufman draws out the essentials for each character. For Tomas the pursuit of sexual pleasure with a succession of partners is an absolute. As he cycles through cities, careers and circumstances, his eyes will always wander.

Tomas (many times): Take off your clothes.

For Sabina unfettered freedom matters, and her jagged artistry and love of mirrors combines easily with a distaste for ever allowing anyone else to share her reflection. And Tereza is a model of patience and sacrifice, willing to do anything to stand by the one man she loves, no matter how many times he strays. Her dedication leads to sordid dead-ends in trying to emulate his emotional detachment from sexual adventurism. Tomas thrives within the carefree lightness of his being, Tereza finds it unbearable, and yet they deeply love each other.

Tereza, speaking to Tomas: I know I'm supposed to help you, but I can't. Instead of being your support I'm your weight. Life is very heavy to me, but it is so light to you. I can't bear this lightness, this freedom... I'm not strong enough.

Kaufman weaves a broader search of happiness theme seamlessly into the lovers' travails. Choices about where to live, whether to conform or resist, and tests of commitment to each other and to independent thought are interjected throughout the film. Places matter and influence well-being: Prague is the warmth of home first with the exciting freedom of expression then with the steel boot of communism, while Geneva offers cold safety in a foreign land. Late in the film an unexpected locale and the opportunity for a new lifestyle is presented, allowing the activist urbanites to explore a surprisingly attractive dynamic.

Daniel Day-Lewis, Lena Olin and Juliette Binoche are unforgettable in their roles, and create three compelling people well worth spending time with.

With frequent scenes featuring lovemaking and nudity, The Unbearable Lightness Of Being targets mature audiences willing to invest the time to soak up its tender brilliance. All three characters carry their affections alongside their faults, and they are all also endearingly human in their uncompromising search for a life worth living.

Tereza: Tomas, what are you thinking?
Tomas: I'm thinking how happy I am.

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