Review of Upstream Color (2013) by Mike_M — 21 Apr 2013

Short version: Upstream Color is a good-but-flawed, puzzling, poetical, unusual movie. It's not easy to watch or digest, but will give you plenty to think and feel.

* *.

Users have noted how flawed this movie is while (unkindly- cruelly even) rating it 0. Some very good critics (Zacharek among them) have given it lukewarm reviews. There is some truth to what they say. It is hard to follow, artsy-fartsy, and pretentious (as in: intellectual ambition failed, as separate from artsy-fartsiness). How severely to penalize an American movie in 2013 for these three flaws is an open question. For me, not one of these flaws, or all of them together, is as ugly as any one of the flaws we get most often in our movies, whether big-budget or indie or in between. It's not based on a franchise, it's not a vehicle for celebrities, it's not a recycled-story excuse for special effects or tear-jerking, it's not quirky and too cute by half, there's no particular exploitation of sex or violence, and the relatively happy ending is probably too troubling (in my interpretation) to call tacked-on, facile or restorative.

Upstream Color is a good, unusual movie with a lot of unusual flaws. Piecing the story together takes place across the entire movie. The characters are the sort of two-dimensional types that are necessary for an allegory, especially one that's puzzling, lyrical, metaphorical and maybe deliberately inscrutable. you might love this movie. You might hate it. You will not have the same old movie experience.