Rose (Eden Hamilton) would appear to be your average constantly aggrieved 14-year-old in “Up Against It,” but despite a lifestyle that appears to be nothing to complain about with her father Alvaro (Antonio Banderas) a noted conductor and her mother Saffron (Eva Birthistle) keeping up a luxe flat, she actually has reason to be upset when she’s usually kept in the dark. She is well past any anger she had about her parents divorce years ago, but she’s the last to know that Saffron is set to marry her longtime beau Kingsley (Arinzé Kene), and while calling him stepdad isn’t likely going to be an issue when she likes him just fine, the kid gloves’ treatment irks her, which makes it all the worse when she learns there’s a bigger secret that Saffron has been hiding from her that could actually put her life in jeopardy.
It’s a bit difficult to decide at first how seriously to take Trudie Styler’s second narrative feature from its opening minutes when the set up is for a broad comedy of misunderstandings, especially when it follows Rose run around London set to Bill Withers’ “Lovely Day” all to grind to a halt upon learning the news of Saffron and Kingsley’s impending nuptials, but like Styler’s previous film “Freak Show,” where the flamboyant tale of a teenage boy who hoped to become his school’s homecoming queen gave way to something tender, “Up Against It” becomes formidable once it becomes clearer there’s something more interesting going on beneath the surface. The other credit to take note of is co-writer Camille Griffin (with Chloe King), for whom Styler appeared in her directorial debut “Silent Night,” which found an unusual tone somewhere between black comedy and sincere introspection as it considered a Christmas family get-together ahead of an impending apocalypse and parents had to weigh how truthful they should be with their children about the doom ahead.
It isn’t the end of the world for everyone in “Up Against It,” but it could be for Rose upon a discovery that a long-latent strain of leukemia has returned to her bloodstream after she was given a clean bill of health at two, occurring so long ago that neither Alvaro and Saffron can really remember nor inclined to tell Rose when it seemed like something that shouldn’t hang over her head. Yet it truly adds insult to injury when Rose seems out of the loop on most things and the potentially terminal diagnosis puts Saffron and Alvaro back in the same room together just as they begin plotting their lives with different partners, with the stakes raised by the prospect that the only way to potentially save Rose’s life is with another child that shares similar genes when they individually aren’t good match for a transfusion. The fact that this whole process is triggered by Rose showering Saffron with an endless array of projectile vomit at her engagement party leading to a hospital visit is a fair warning of the goofiness involved at nearly every turn, but the film is genuinely engaging at its core when everyone in Rose’s life wants the best for her and the medical crisis brings out the different dynamics amongst what is likely to be her extended family.
Styler can be counted on to go big with any element of the film – beyond the occasionally bawdy humor, having costumes from Colleen Atwood and cinematography from Dante Spinotti bring an instant panache – but it’s the smaller stuff that resonates when for instance, rather than see each other as adversaries as their partners spend more time together, Kingsley and Lana (Úrsula Corberó), Alvaro’s girlfriend, trade numbers and joke that they’re going to be new parents together. The tenuous reunion between Alvaro and Saffron also isn’t exactly what you’d expect when they always put Rose’s best interests ahead of their own, but you can see the faults in both that led to their unraveling as a couple and could potentially crop up as issues with their new better halves. Between this and “Freak Show,” the director has an impressive touch for illustrating relationships that have real history to them, particularly working with as strong an ensemble as she has here, and while it may be a race to find the right blood type for Rose, “Up Against It” has the right stuff running through its veins the whole time.
“Up Against It” will screen again at the Toronto Film Festival at the Scotiabank on September 18th at 3:10 pm at the September 19th at 6:45 pm.