Technical assessment: 3
Moral assessment: 3
CINEMA rating: V14
MTRCB rating: GP (General
Patronage)
In another part of the
universe, twin worlds exist with the following rules of gravity: 1) All matter is pulled by the gravity
of the world it comes from; 2) An object’s weight can be offset by matter from
the opposite world or inverse matter; 3) Matter in contact with inverse matter
burns after some time. The inhabitants
of each world are not allowed to have any relationship with each other and
their only contact is through Transworld, an industrial corporation built by
the world above that enables it to get gas from below at the same time
supplying it electricity at such high cost.
In the poorer exploited world below, Adam (Jim Sturgess) lives as an
orphan who has inherited from his aunt a secret formula that allows matter to
defy gravity while on the richer oppressive world above, Eden suffers from
amnesia after a fatal accident when she was a teenager. The memories Eden lost
before her accident were the secret meetings she made with Adam. Ten years
after the accident, Adam sees Eden in a TV program sponsored by Transworld and
decides to use his secret formula to gain employment and meet Eden once
more. But to win her back, he must
defy gravity, confront the prejudices of the world above, regain Eden’s trust
and try to make her believe the dreams she has been having were memories of
their past.
The effects and production design are splendid,
giving that gritty in your face feel of a hard core reality even with the
obvious vignette and color corrections. The visual effect is breath-taking with the seamless blending
of fiction and fairy tale in the work. It is obvious that this film was challenging to shoot and
execute but Solanas pulled it off quite impressively, technically speaking. This aspect made the film engaging
despite its pretentious storytelling. The story and its tempo resonate Gattaca and move too slow for comfort. It did not help that Sturgess and Dunst both were
irritatingly sugary and stilted. You
just knew from the start that they will end up with each other after the first
10 minutes so why wait another hour and forty? You can just wish there was more
to the movie than just the same old love story.
Love is just so great and powerful it defies
gravity—literally, in this movie, at least. Love gives hope and determination
to (also literally) rise above a predicament. But more than the romantic love
is the basic respect for a person not because he or she is loveable but because
he is a human being regardless of class, race or social status. The stronger and more honorable love was
not between Adam and Eden but with Bob—Adam’s upper world co-worker in
Transworld—who made no distinctions between the poorer and the richer world.
Very subtly, the movie talks about equality, brotherhood and breaking that
barrier that separates worlds and people based on what they have.
As a whole, the movie is decent and wholesome but
suggestions of pre-marital sex and pregnancy outside marriage might be
misunderstood by very love struck teenagers.
(Editor’s note: MTRCB rates this movie GP, but parents
surely have a lot of explaining to do to curious kids, not only about Newton’s
law of universal gravitation which all satellites and projectiles obey, but
also the probability of pregnancy without sexual intercourse. Thus it comes as a surprise (spoiler
coming!) that Eden announces in the end that she’s pregnant. Nowhere in the movie do Sturgess and
Dunst go beyond prolonged and boring kissing—but hey, wait, could they have
“done it” just by floating in the air while locked in an embrace? You never know in sci-fi. But that’s what CINEMA is trying to say
here. Upside down is science-fiction, and despite its scientific sounding
opening scene laying out the fictional gravitational laws from which the story
attempts to draw its claim to credibility, the storyline is burdened with
inconsistent physics. Mesmerized
by the stunning visuals, intelligent kids might still wonder: Are there even
sunsets or sunrises in either world?
Do the worlds revolve around a sun jointly? Do they rotate around their individual axis synchronized? We’re willing to grant that the makers
of Upside down are trying to present
an ideal society where freedom and equality reign supreme, and that a new
civilization is possible through the union of Adam and Eden—the choice of their
names is a giveaway—but don’t let their hypothesis turn your science upside
down).
