Up There 2012

Martin, Burn Gorman, speaks directly to the camera, stating that he died in a traffic accident and is now dead. He clarifies that the afterlife in this story isn’t a world of ghosts who can walk through walls or manipulate objects; instead, the recently deceased find themselves in a liminal space. Two “carers” arrive to usher him into a waiting area called a re-start centre, where the atmosphere is focused on therapy-like routines and positive thinking. In this setting, Martin attends group counselling sessions that push hopeful thinking as a path to meaning, even as he tries to project a cheerful façade. His attempts at feigned optimism are observed by another dead person who becomes a quiet friend, and soon the two are assigned roles as carers at a hospital to guide newly dead souls through their strange afterlife.

Burn Gorman’s Martin is hopeful that this new caregiving role will earn him credit that could lead to a further step “up there,” a staircase toward something presumably more pleasant than the re-start centre. Yet progress is slow, and only his colleague is promoted to a higher rung of this peculiar afterlife system. The routine shifts when Martin is paired with a new co-worker, Rash, Aymen Hamdouchi, and their early days are framed by challenges as they encounter difficult newly-dead clients. One such client is a criminal whose name Martin struggles to pronounce, a man who runs away from them, testing Martin’s resolve and patience. Rash, who talks plenty and seems to relish this strange afterlife far more than Martin, pushes the duo into a mission that takes them away from the centre toward a seaside town.

In a library, Martin encounters a woman named Liz, Kate O’Flynn, and he realizes he can read a book or newspaper aloud beside a living person if the pages are turned by the living person at the right moment. Liz hides when another dead man appears, and she reveals that she used to know that man, suggesting he cannot take a hint. His co-worker hints that Liz was a suicide, adding a layer of rumor and mystery to her presence in this world. A chase soon follows when the pair spot the runaway, though they initially lose him. They learn that his real identity isn’t Polish—he goes by Chick—and his father, who is a “starer” dead man who simply stares into space, lives in the town.

As the town becomes their focus, the planned send-off for Chick is printed in the morning paper; Rash argues that Chick should be allowed to say goodbye to his family and stay, while Martin is anxious to return for his assessment and move on. Liz hints that there might be a path out of town if the right boat comes, and she eventually rows with the dead man who has been following her, then apologises to Martin for the situation. Their odd romance of sorts deepens as the clock ticks toward consequences in the living world.

One night, at an all-night garage, Rash trails a couple who are a little wild, and they decide to stick with them because Mandy, the woman in the car, must appear before a judge early the next morning, so they’ll drive back to the city. Liz joins them, and the scene becomes awkward as the group witnesses the couple’s intimate moment in the backseat. The story sharpens when Chick, visiting Chick’s mum, recounts how his death happened and implies it involved a mistake. He describes seeing Rash chased by a group of unnamed lads, and a Fiat Punto was involved in the fatal incident. Martin’s frustration grows as he notices two young lads who copy Rash and mock Chick, and he blames Chick for Rash’s death in a heated moment, causing the youths to back away.

Liz arrives again, and Martin invites her to return to the centre with him, but she refuses, announcing she is leaving with her ex who she says she killed. The tension escalates as Martin and Chick reconnect with Rash, who does not immediately recognize Chick. The car pulls away without Rash, and the trio’s movements trace a tangled path through processing and memory. Back in the city, Martin brings Chick in for processing and Chick’s wish to speak to Rash is granted in a form, while Rash’s brother is reported to have recovered, a detail that complicates the emotional landscape of the living and the dead.

Martin’s assessment finally arrives, and he is told he’ll be moving upstairs, but he pauses to search for Rash and Chick. The two head toward a strip club, where Rash has become a “starer,” a specter who stares instead of engaging. Martin reveals a painful truth about his wife: he hadn’t expected her to kill herself as a response to his death; instead, he understands that she let him go, and he must learn to let her go as well. In the quiet, Rash wakes enough to speak with Chick, accepting that Chick’s decision to kill him was tied to a larger, sturdier story about the car that took his life.

The film weaves together memory, guilt, and the stubborn contours of an afterlife that seems almost ordinary in how it behaves—bureaucratic, full of small tasks, and stubbornly human in its desires. Through Martin’s slow realization that even in death there are unresolved ties to the living, to Liz’s mysterious past, to Chick’s painful truth, and to Rash’s evolving place in this strange limbo, the narrative keeps circling the question of what it means to move on when the path upward isn’t clearly marked. The ultimate moment suggests that some bonds endure beyond death, even as the living must continue their own journeys, and the dead—whether in a re-start centre, a seaside town, or a city street—find their own versions of closure, sometimes through the most unlikely forms of connection and understanding.