Up & Down

Had no idea what this film was when I decided to watch it on Netflix and was pleasantly surprised by how attached I became to the subject matter, the characters and the story.

Brosnan is a disgraced TV personalty and decides to commit suicide by jumping off the top of a building on New Year's Eve. While up there, he meets 3 other people, played by Toni Collette, Aaron Paul and Imogen Poots, all there to do the same thing. None of them commit the act and instead form a weird bond between each other. A pact is made not to commit suicide until the next "popular" suicide date, which is Valentine's Day. Dark subject matter, I know.

Despite the content of the film involving topics such as cancer, suicide, underage sex and other questionable character choices, the film balances this topics interestingly enough to keep it rather light. It never became too dark, nor too comedic. It walked a fine line of genuine trust in the characters. I found myself attached to each one, their faults, their quirks and liked them all. Imogen Poots has the hardest task of playing the "wild card" character. This character can sometimes become irritatingly annoying and I can see some people thinking her performance here is just that, but I found it oddly charming and real. She's a young girl who yearns to be loved and can't find it. She's lost, she feels alone and she turns to uncomfortable humour as a shield to hide her true feelings. I felt that her character had the most demons and she came off as the most interesting.

The film is broken up into four segments and each segment is from one of the characters POV. At first I was afraid that it was going to be one of those films that played the same event multiple times from different character perspectives, but was relieved when that was not the case.

The film fails to use the supporting cast effectively. Sam Neil is only in a few select scenes and Rosamund Pike is in one very uncomfortable one. Couldn't help but feel that their talents were slightly wasted here. I had no idea this film was based on a book, thus had nothing to hold it against. There seems to be a lot of hate towards it, but I was genuinely interested from start to finish.

Actually quite a sweet little movie. Don't kill yourself, somewhere someone cares.

A comedy about 4 people who are suicidal, sounds like an oxymoron doesn't it? Well, this is the issue dealt in this light hearted comedy & drama.

It was a New Year's Eve at the top of a building, the ideal suicide spot that these four individuals encountered one another. Somehow their presence provided a barrier to their urge and since they survived that night, they kept in touch and tried to encourage one another...in life.

The makers of this film must have faced a challenge in how to deal with a dramatic issue (suicide) but convey it in a semi comical tone without appearing to ridicule such a serious issue.

Thus, through the chance encounter our characters realised slowly that they have something to live for and that beauty can be found in purpose and togetherness and in that problems can be faced rather than avoided taking the easy way out.

Whilst I stand by my 'light-hearted' remark earlier, this is not to say that it is shallow. It deals with a very sombre matter but even such matters can be approached from a humorous angle.

While a story about 4 suicidal strangers meeting on a rooftop about to jump sounds interesting, this movie was not all that interesting.

There were times when scenes felt too long and equally many scenes that could and perhaps should have been longer. Some potentially interesting plot threads were brought up in a scene and hardly mentioned again (same with some characters). The emotional scenes weren't that effective either and I didn't laugh much during the movie either. The characters aren't that great either. None of them felt believable for me.

In the end, felt that the movie was predictable, cheesy and not that entertaining. The ending of the movie didn't do much to change that either. Not the best movie this year.

If you have read the novel by Nick Hornby, you will recognize the same ironic mood in the picture, where making fool of ourselves and of our small/big tragedies seems to be the only way to go on and not down. The comic hilarious side and the more dramatic one blend together without ever clashing and it is impossible not to identify oneself with the contrasting and sometimes simultaneous tendency of the characters to get depressed and to smile at life at the same time. I enjoyed the performance of all the group, especially Toni Colette who is always able to interpret her characters with such authenticity. And if you have not read the book, the movie may offer an occasion also to you to spend some enjoyable time.