Amazon
From the trailer alone, it’s clear that Camila Mendes’s new romcom, Upgraded, is basically a Gen-Z play on The Devil Wears Prada. In place of Anne Hathaway’s put-upon fashion assistant, Andy, this Amazon Prime Video offering casts Mendes as a beleaguered aspiring gallery owner named Ana—who also works as an assistant to a mercurial boss in the hopes of securing her coveted recommendation. Marisa Tomei puts on a strange, vaguely European accent to play our new boss from hell, Claire Dupont, and from there, it’s off to the races.
As familiar as each and every beat in Upgraded might be, Mendes remains as charming as ever. When she gets upgraded to first class on a business trip with her abusive bosses and pockets the little glass salt and pepper shakers for no real reason at all, the mischievous grin on her face will instantly make you want to be her friend. It’s no wonder that her neighbor on the flight, a wealthy Brit boy named William (Archie Renaux), is instantly enamored—even after she spills a Bloody Mary down his cream-colored suede slacks.
Upgraded knows what it has in its marquee trio of performers, and director Carlson Young makes the most of all three of them. Mendes’s talent for wry, knowing humor—perfected in comedies like Netflix’s Do Revenge and through years of playing Veronica Lodge on Riverdale—pays dividends. Ana weathers ceaseless insults from her uncultured brother-in-law, on top of her boss’s ridiculous temper, and with each passing eye-roll, she becomes all the more relatable. As if Claire’s eccentricities weren’t enough, Ana’s also constantly taking shit from the assistants above her—both of whom love to make fun of her poverty and to remind her that she’ll never get their jobs.