Upgraded is a 2024 Romantic Comedy starring Camila Mendes, Archie Renaux, and Marisa Tomei. It follows Ana Santos (Mendes), an art intern who dreams of having her own gallery. For now, however, she's stuck working for her brutally perfectionistic boss Claire (Tomei). When Ana seems to impress Claire at an event, she invites the intern to a business trip in London.
The ticket agent at the airport sees the poor treatment that Ana goes through at the hands of her boss and her cutthroat colleagues Suzette (Rachel Matthews) and Renee (Fola Evans-Akingbola). So she decides to give Ana a free upgrade on her flight — Ana gets to fly first-class for the price of an economy ticket. On her flight, she meets the handsome, posh Will (Renaux). The main plot kicks off when Ana lies and tells him she's actually the boss of the gallery.
The film premiered via Prime Video on February 9, 2024. It was directed by Carlson Young (best known as an actress from Scream: The TV Series) and written by Christine Lenig, Justin Matthews and Luke Spencer Roberts.
Tropes
- Almighty Janitor: Ana is this. Claire even relegates her to office work again on the day Ana was supposed to join the auction team because of a spill on her shirt. Yet Ana saves the day with her knowledge of art, which is what impresses Claire enough to invite her to London on the gallery's big business trip.
- Improbable Age: Will finds it hard to believe that the twentysomething Ana is the director of her own art gallery. She tells him she's the youngest ever. (The young part is true, the director part isn't.)
- Insistent Terminology: Ana sleeps on her sister Vivian's futon, not couch. And the painting they've got on their wall is of a swan, not a circle.
- Small Role, Big Impact: The ticket agent (played by Juliet Agnes) who gives Ana her flight upgrade appears for only one scene. She doesn't even have a name, with the IMDb page listing the role as simply "Ticket Agent." However, she's pretty much responsible for the main plotline of the film.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: Tomei's Claire has a bizarre, unplaceable accent that confuses even the characters in-universe. Ana's friend Amy has a theory that Claire uses this weird accent to hide that she's from Minnesota.
