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Here’s a movie for dog lovers, the elderly, children of divorce, FOBs (Friends of Birds), customary Boy Scouts, people yearning for adventure, and anyone who has ever loved… and lost. Up is for everyone. It made me laugh out loud, and it made me yowl.
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I notion it would be tough for Up to match the emotional power of Wall-E. The two Pixar films are similar in their lack of dialogue in the first act, which helps deepen the emotional impact. Up begins with Carl, a jumpy young boy star-struck by a celebrated explorer; and kookie Ellie, who has a similar obsession. The two kids become quickly friends, and sigh to one day depart to Venezuela’s Paradise Falls. After getting married, they assume their dream home and fix it up, hoping to believe it with children. Carl and Ellie’s life together from childhood through mature age is depicted, silently, with delicacy and subtlety. The first 15 minutes is like a celebration of a glad marriage, and you truly feel Carl’s distress when he is left alone. He sits slumped in his chair, talking to the house as if it is the missing Ellie.
When developers stop in on Carl’s beloved home, he decides to fulfill his promise to Ellie and move to Paradise Falls. A frail balloon vendor, Carl lifts his home with hundreds of incandescent balloons. Stowing away on the porch is Russell, a bulky, mettlesome kid trying to secure a scouting badge.
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After landing in Paradise Falls, the former man and the puny boy are joined by a golden retriever named Dug who can talk with his collar, and a ample rare bird that bonds with Russell (he names her “Kevin”) . Dug is priceless: spot-on for every dog that ever lived, including an obsession with squirrels. Through a series of end calls and adventures, the quartet vanquishes a villain, saving the day. And Russell earns his scouting badge.
In the process, Carl learns to let go of his shaded mourning for Ellie, and live life again. When this happens, a truly magical thing happens. Before, Carl’s craggy face is gray and monochromatic. At the moment of his transformation, Carl’s face is awash in color, and he is surrounded by stunning hues. It reminded me of The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy steps out of her gray world and into a candy-colored Munchkinland. Carl, too, enters a whole recent world.
Up is a deeply emotional film, stout of truth. It’s the year’s best film. Get another triumph for Pixar.
Someday, Pixar is going to do it — they’re going to earn an emotionally uninspiring, lackluster appealing movie. But in the meantime, they’re smooth putting out palatable intelligent movies like “Up,” which defies the usual kid-movie conventions by starring a crotchety venerable man. It’s a charming, fun small adventure narrative with flying dogs and balloon-powered houses, but underlying it is a bittersweet slight sage about loss and fancy.
As a child, the insecure Carl Fredricksen bonded with the oddball Ellie over their shared care for of adventure, the explorer Charles Muntz, and Paradise Falls. They later married, proceed into their “clubhouse” together, and lived a long, sadly childless life together. When Ellie died, she had never fulfilled her dream of going to Paradise Falls.
Now crotchety, alone and harassed by a trusty estate developer, Carl (Ed Asner) is finally ordered to a retirement home. But he isn’t going quietly — instead he attaches thousands of balloons to his house and floats it away toward South America. But he accidentally takes an keen, naive Wilderness Explorer (a thinly-veiled Boy Scout) named Russell (Jordan Nagai) along for the jog. Terrible kid was impartial trying to get an “assisting the elderly” badge.
And the jungle traipse to Paradise Falls turns out to have some surprising obstacles: a tremendous emulike bird that Russell names Kevin, a talking dog named Dug (”I am jumping on you, bird!”), and a mysterious worn man who lives deep in the heart of the jungle. Turns out the ragged guy is very familiar to Carl — and to pick Kevin, he’s willing to sacrifice Carl and Russell.
Industry experts were babbling about how “Up” wouldn’t be as approved as the previous Pixar movies, because the protagonist is basically a crusty mature coot. Well, shows what they know. It ended up becoming one of those classic movies that somehow appeals to all ages — while the humor and action appeal to children, adults can relish Carl’s appreciate for his lost wife, and his expressionless realization that he’s clinging to the past.
In fact, the first ten minutes are some of the most heart-tugging, quietly bittersweet scenes I’ve seen in a long time. Without a word, they present all the ups and downs of a realistic marriage — joys, sorrows (Ellie’s inability to have children), growing primitive together, and finally loss.
But it’s not a depressing movie by any stretch — in fact, it’s like a childhood fantasy approach to life, complete with a floating house suspended on hundreds of balloons, and biplanes piloted by a talking dog army.. Plenty of broad dialogue (”Do you want to play a game? It’s called Recognize Who Can Go the Longest Without Saying Anything.” “Frosty! My mom loves that game!”) and an action-packed climax in an outmoded airship.
Ed Asner is absolutely perfect as ubergrouch Carl — crotchety, grumpy, and distinct to fulfill his wife’s lifelong dream, but gradually realizing he’s clinging to the past. Nagai is equally perfect as Carl’s polar opposite: a naive, chattery Scout who is distinct to reunite Kevin with her baby chicks. And the utterly adorable Dug and the other dogs deserve special peer. These creatures are utterly hilarious — they talk (”I hid under your porch because I like you”) and act the arrangement dogs would if they talked. Three words: cone of shame.
The two-disc edition is going to have some very nice extras, but once again people with regular-def DVDs are going to derive shafted because the Blu-ray edition will have a bunch of outlandish stuff. Grr. As for this one, there’s a digital copy, the director’s audio commentary, kinda-alternate-ending “The Many Endings of Muntz,” and the documentary “Adventure Is Out There” about the research for this movie.
There are also a pair of adorable intelligent shorts. “Partly Cloudy” has a much-abused stork having to whine potentially nasty baby creatures from a kind but clueless cloud. And “Dug’s Special Mission” is a sort of backstory for the adorable Dug, explaining what the heck he was doing before he met up with Carl and Russell.
“Up” continues Pixar’s running tally of gloriously appealing, emotionally layered movies that the entire family can delight in. With that, I have only one more thing to say… SQUIRREL!
