"SLC-S25/W1-Movie Snapshots|Around the world - Upgraded

Greetings everyone and welcome to my blog. I am glad to participate in this season’s challenge on movie snapshots. I do hope you enjoy my movie challenge presentation.

Watch a movie from a country other than your own country or not of your country's origin.

Movie thumbnail image; screenshot from my movie gallery

I am Nigerian and for this challenge, I watched an American movie titled “Upgraded”. I got interested in this movie when I saw the thriller on YouTube and it was very captivating and I decided that I was going to watch it and then I did. I didn’t regret any bit of it.

It was filmed in USA and London and the director is Carlson Young. The movie is distributed by Amazon prime video and it’s a must see as the movie presents the perfect blend of the struggles young people pass through to make it in life and the temptation to belong and also impress while struggling with the need between love and acceptance.

Talk about the main idea of the movie

Ideas behind movies points to the different things the movies portrays and possible the take home from such movies. This particular movie portrayed about four ideas and I’d explain them briefly.

• Importance of family : We always say that families are the best and this movie portrayed that importance as the protagonist Ana Santos who was a young artist didn’t have anywhere to stay except squatting at her sisters place. The sister and her husband lives in a room but they had to accommodate her even though her sisters husband wasn’t very keen on that but Family helped Ana have a roof over her head during her struggling time even though she slept on their couch. Her sister was also supportive of her dream as an artist even though things weren’t rosy at the moment.

• Resilience to survive a toxic work environment: Here we see Ana struggling to survive her toxic work environment. Her boss was a perfectionist with little or no care about the workers and she had two assistant who were a thorn in Ana’s flesh but she managed to get well along with them. Her resilience and patience through those toxic experiences in the hands of her boss and colleagues were commendable.

• Show casing the beauty of art: As someone who wasn’t a fan or art works, this movie made me fall in fall with art as it show cases the beauty and creativity of art and how every art works have beautiful bits of emotions behind them and that was very relaxing.

• The need for sincerity at all cost: Insincerity almost cost Ana her love life and this movie portrays the need for us to be sincere as all times and not having the need to pretend. Those who would accept us would accept us no matter what.

In conclusion I loved the ideas the movie fused together making it a beautiful piece of entertainment.

Share the characters

The characters featured in this movie are unique and I’d share them with the roles they played briefly.

Ana, the main character: screenshot from my movie player

Movie name	Real name	Role
Ana Santos	Camila Mendes	The protagonist who is a young artist and an intern in an art auction house who had a dream of owning an art gallery someday
William Delaroche	Archie Renaux	The rich young guy who falls for Ana despite her initial deceit
Claire DuPont	Marisa Tomie	Ana boss at the art auction house
Catherine Delaroche	Lena Olien	Williams mum who liked Ana at their first meeting
Vivian Santos	Amie Carrero	Ana’s Sister
Ronnie	Andrew Schulz	Vivian’s husband who wanted Ana to leave their house
Suzette	Rachel Matthews	Ana’s toxic colleague who made her work difficult
Renee	Fola Evan’s-Akingbola	Another toxic colleague of Ana that made her work difficult
Amy	Saoirse-Monica Jackson	Ana’s friend and colleague at the auction house
Julian Marx	Anthony Head	A famous artist and a friend of Williams mum who later became friends with Ana
Gerard Abel	Gregory Montel	Ana’s boss’ rival in the art world
Arnold Grant	Thomas Kretschmann	A man who worked with Ana’s boss to close a high profile auction

Describe the plot and setting of the movie.

The art work Swan; screenshots from my movie gallery

The movie opened up with Ana the young and talented artist describing an art work which she called a swan to the sister and brother in law while explaining her passion and dream to own an art gallery someday. She explained to them that as an intern, she needs to get the endorsement of her boss Claire DuPont who was a very popular figure that runs an auction house where Ana works in for her to excel and start her own gallery someday.

Her explanations were met with a resistance from Her sisters husband who wanted her to go back to military school in London and leave their apartment. He wasn’t happy with her staying with them as they lived in a room and there’s no privacy to meet with his wife the way he wants he lamented. Ana didn’t want to go back to London but rather watched to pursue her carrier as an artist in the US. This always put her at a log ahead with her brother in law.

Ana’s boss and her two toxic assistants.

On the other hand, Ana worked for a perfectionist boss who barely noticed her existence until she saved a day at the office by revealing a mistake that would have cost her boss a huge amount of money. The boss after that incident out of the blues asked her to be her third assistant on an auction trip to London. Meanwhile her boss already had two assistant Suzette and Renee who were very toxic and always made Ana’s job difficult.

The call to join her boss to the trip came rather suddenly and she had to pack up quickly to the excitement of her sister’s husband who was happy that he was going to have the privacy he always wanted with his wife. The two assistants made her come to the airport four hours before her flight to help with the luggage’s meanwhile they booked her a common flight while they booked business class for themselves and to make the matters worst, the picked a seat close to the toilet for her on the economy class. They also spoke very rudely and in a demeaning way to her at the airport.

The flight ticketing staff saw the way she was rudely treated and upgraded her flight to first class and that was where the movie got its name upgraded from. She was to use the spa and the first class lounge while waiting for her flight. It was in the process of enjoying her Bloody Mary drink given to her that she ran into Williams whom she spilled the Bloody Mary on because she was on the phone and wasn’t look at where she was going to. She apologized and both parted ways only to become seat mates on the first class flight.

Williams, Ana’s Lover; screenshot from my movie player

They got talking and During the process Williams pronounced her as a director is an art gallery to which she didn’t correct him, so he assumed she was a rich director of an art house. She just played along with the name. Meanwhile Williams mum was waiting for her son outside the airport and she got to meet Ana after their flight landed. She took an immediate liking to Ana because they shared the same likeness for art and she invited her over to their house for dinner.

At the dinner Ana met many important people and also learnt that Williams mum was the owner of the art work they were trying to sell which was worth millions of dollars. Ana tried to avoid her toxic colleagues as she used her new found connections to meet her bosses demands she made her more endeared to her boss. Meanwhile she made out with Williams who had taken a liking to her. But everything went south when Williams mum said she wasn’t interested in selling the art work again with led to her boss threatening to find out what went wrong. She found out Ana had a link to Williams mum and sacked her from her job. Also Ana and Williams had separated due to this issue and some other interest issues.

Plot twist

Williams Mum, screenshot from my movie player

After Ana was sacked, she also got a call from her sister telling her that her husband had gotten a dog and there was no more space for her in their house. Ana was stranded on the street. No job and no house to return to in the US. Meanwhile, Ana went to Wilson’s mum to confess her real identity as she thought she was the reason while the deal was called off but Williams mum said she was only using her and was even proud of the game she pulled off. Well, she wanted to raise the price of the sales and she also made Ana in charge of the auction. This was a total turn around for Ana. Finally she would have her dream gallery.

Meanwhile she went to apologize to Williams for not telling him the truth of her real identity who was hurt and didn’t want to continue the relationship. Ana found her way back to the US but now had the money to get a place for herself and also open her dream art gallery. Her former Boss even graced the occasion including her sister in-law and the husband with her friend. It was a beautiful event and a dream come through. Everything was in order except for her lost love.

Well, after the launch and everyone was gone came her heart robb all the way from London. It’s been six months since that incident happened and here he was ready to reclaim his love. Love indeed has no boundaries. The movie ended beautifully as the two love birds continued their love story. A beautiful blend of forgiveness and resilience.

If you were the Director of the movie what would you do differently?

The movie was perfect in all sides as it portrayed love and the beauty of forgiveness. If I was the director, I would have created a scene were the toxic colleagues of Ana would have had a little taste of their own tea. They were really mean to her and she didn’t even as much as retaliate. She was a special soul. Toxic people should be made to have a taste of their own pie just so that they would they would know how to treat people with respect. Just my little opinion. Outside of that, the movie is a 10/10 for me.

Thanks for being a part of this review. It’s a well recommended movie if you are yet to see it.