Upstream Color

2013 • 96 minutes
4.3
183 reviews
86%
Tomatometer
Eligible
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About this movie

A woman (Amy Seimetz) is abducted and hypnotized with an organic material harvested from a specific flower. When she falls for a man (Carruth) the two come to realize he may also have been subjected to the same process. They search urgently for a place of safety within each other and struggle to assemble the fragments of their wrecked lives, unknowingly drawn into the life cycle of a presence that permeates the microscopic world, moving to nematodes, plant life, livestock, and back again.

Ratings and reviews

4.3
183 reviews
Jordan Jacquin
November 16, 2022
Honestly just a huge waste of time, I had to watch this "movie" for a film class and I have no idea what the paper I have to write is going to about. Theres ways to tell a story visually and be subtle and then theres filming an hour and a half of out of focus close-ups overlayed with the same 2 minutes of ambient music he grabbed from a youtube mp4. whatever this movie is supposed to be about, nothing in it is interesting enough tomake me want to find out or think more about it. JustPretentious
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A Google user
February 20, 2014
Vice has a documentary about a drug extracted from a flower that allows you to be controlled completely by suggestion, so when I saw that Carruth had another film (I loved Primer) that involved a similar theme, I wanted to see it. Many of the other reviews are right - this movie is abstruse but emotionally intense. I'm impatient with slow movies and movies that try to evoke strong feelings without purpose. But Upstream Color has purpose and an actual, beautiful, scary story behind its abstract face.
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Roee Rosenzweig
December 13, 2016
This was hands down the most incoherent, pretentious, sluggish, nonsensical, and downright painful movie experience of my entire life. I harbor nothing but hatred towards every single soul involved in the creation of this abomination.
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