Upgraded (2024)

A terrific rom-com premise is mostly wasted in director Carlson Young’s Upgraded, starring Camila Mendes and Archie Renaux as two strangers who bump into each other on a transatlantic flight. Out on Prime Video, the movie falls back on tried-and-tested genre tropes for almost the entire duration of its 90-minute run-time, although it’s up for debate if it wants to rewrite the rulebook at all. The result is something that, despite the foreign setting and intermittently enjoyable shenanigans, feels all too familiar.

Mendes plays Ana, a young intern at a coveted art gallery, who is sent to shadow her demanding boss on a trip to London. Ana is crashing on her sister’s couch, her art history degree hilariously compared by her brother-in-law to his ‘masters in kung-fu movies’ — which is to say that it’s just as worthless. But despite her lack of options, Ana is an ambitious young woman. In many ways, she’s like Anne Hathaway’s character in The Devil Wears Prada.

And often, Upgraded appears to draw from that rom-com classic quite liberally. There is no greater similarity between the two films, for instance, than the characterisation of Ana’s boss. Clearly modelled on Miranda Priestly, who was played so memorably by Meryl Streep in that film, Ana’s boss in Upgraded is an equally haughty middle-aged woman named Claire Dupont. She’s played by a game Marisa Tomei, who gives her a vague Eastern European accent and a formidable reputation. The rumour around the office, however, is that Claire is actually from Wisconsin.

Either way, she’s a tough cookie. She barks orders at her minions, doesn’t tolerate incompetence, but takes notice of Ana after she displays her keen observation skills during a high-stakes auction. Impressed, Claire commands her to join her and her two mean girl assistants on the Europe trip, where she intends to close a major deal. Out of spite, the assistants book Ana on a different flight. But in a fortunate turn of events at the airport — the lady behind the counter takes pity on her — Ana is upgraded to first class, and this is where she runs into the charming William. Watch movie.

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