The Upside (2019) is, at times shot for shot, a remake of the wildly successful French film Intouchables (2011), itself a remake of the French documentary À la vie, à la mort (2003), about the quadriplegic Corsican businessman Philippe Pozzo di Borgo and his Algerian caregiver, Abdel Sellou. Not only did Intouchables become the second-highest-grossing film of all time in France, 52 percent of voters in an Fnac poll deemed it the cultural event of the year. Across the English Channel, however, the film received a more mixed reception. Nigel Farndale wrote for the Telegraph, “The film . . . has been breaking box-office records in France and Germany, and one of the reasons seems to be that it gives the audience permission to laugh with, not at, people with disabilities.” Anthony Quinn of the Independent, on the other hand, wondered, “Why has the world flipped for this movie? Maybe it’s the fantasy it spins on racial/social/cultural mores, much as Driving Miss Daisy did 20-odd years ago—uptight rich white employer learns to love through black employee’s life-force.”
Although he doesn’t have magical abilities, Dell might as well, given how keenly he’s able to sense what Phillip needs even when he says the opposite (Phillip rebuffs Dell’s initial offer to smoke weed only to request it from him directly later). Dell’s sexuality also gradually rubs off on Phillip, distinguishing Dell from the usually sexless Magic Negro only by moving into the territory of another stereotype: the hypervirile black man. Dell openly hits on Maggie as soon as he meets her, and our own voyeuristic desires for Dell are satisfied during a lengthy scene in which he struggles with his high-tech, German-speaking shower. Dell’s presence not only gets Phillip to escalate his relationship with Lily, but also brings the romantic arc to a close when Dell reenters at the end to save Phillip and redirect his affections towards the obviously interested Yvonne.
