Czech comedy/drama 'Up And Down' has been loved by the critics, many praising it’s balance of comedy and tragedy, and...
Czech comedy/drama 'Up And Down' has been loved by the critics, many praising it’s balance of comedy and tragedy, and it’s intricately woven storylines. Set in present, post-Communist Czech Republic, the film follows various intersecting stories.
A woman who, desperate for a baby, buys one left behind in an immigrant-smuggler’s truck. Her husband, a soccer fanatic, is initially distressed because the baby’s black – though he gradually overcomes his nativist impulses and accepts the boy as a future goalie. A professor’s illness forces a meeting of his bourgeois present (he lives with a hot, younger woman and their daughter) and his scrappier Communist-era past (he left a bitter wife & estranged son).
A woman who, desperate for a baby, buys one left behind in an immigrant-smuggler’s truck. Her husband, a soccer fanatic, is initially distressed because the baby’s black – though he gradually overcomes his nativist impulses and accepts the boy as a future goalie. A professor’s illness forces a meeting of his bourgeois present (he lives with a hot, younger woman and their daughter) and his scrappier Communist-era past (he left a bitter wife & estranged son).
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83 %65 reviewsRotten Tomatoes® rating
74 %1,174 reviewsAudience score rating
"A vibrant, immediate treatise on love and cultural identity in a complex new world of fluid borders and deep suspicions in the stunning new Czech drama Up and Down..."
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Variety
Variety"Lacks any formulas or solutions, and is content to show us its complicated characters, their tangled lives, and the way that our need to love and be loved can lead us in opposite directions..."
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Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert"Someone of lesser skill would have turned this into sloppy melodrama but Hrebejk creates an extraordinarily compact narrative and shows a masterful command of tone which never allows either comedy or drama to dominate..."
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New Zealand Herald
New Zealand Herald"This fluidly paced film, with its keen observation of the confused longing for love, family and stability in an inherently unstable world, nonetheless keeps faith with the Czech genius for holding the tonal line between tragedy and the absurd..."
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LA Weekly
LA Weekly"Up and Down captures Prague life with a fervor that's comical but a longing that's serious; no one is easy to pigeonhole..."
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Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment WeeklyUp And Down (Horem pádem) | Details
Award winner- Official Czech entry, Academy Awards 2004 | Winner of Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, & Best Actress at the Czech Lion Awards 2004 (Czech national awards)
- Runtime
- 108
- Genre
- Comedy, Drama
- Country of origin
- Czech Republic
