Up and Down

If its title were a true indication of what follows, one could reasonably expect Up and Down to deliver a touch of hilarity, some bittersweet pathos, maybe a zing of lowbrow slapstick. No such luck. Jan Hrebejk's comedy is actually more of a sidelong proposition, a Pulp Fiction–style ensemble movie set in contemporary Prague that deadens you with consistently winking irony and random bits of unresolved business. The characters include a sweet-natured security guard (Machácek), his unsatisfied wife (Berger) and a high-energy professor (Triska) whose declining health throws his nuclear family into turmoil.