UP Movie Review
“Adventure is out there!”
So claims Charles Muntz, famous world explorer and star of black-and-white newsreels. Carl Fredericksen, an elderly widower, grew up idolizing Muntz. Muntz discovered Paradise Falls, a seemingly mythical jungle paradise, home to a strange beast Muntz claimed to have discovered – but was rejected and shamed by the scientific community. Fredericksen was a pudgy small child, with goggles and a leather pilot hat, who grew up into a pudgy small man. But, along the way, he met someone else with their own goggles and hat, and a missing tooth – his future wife Ellie. And fate takes its course, and we see Carl and Ellie grow old together, through some very happy times, and through the worst. After finding out the couple couldn’t have children, Ellie became ill later in life, and passed away, leaving Carl alone.
As we’re dropped into the present day, we now see the stereotypical cranky old man, but, more importantly, we know how a pudgy young boy became that bitter old man. Ellie and Carl’s dream home is surrounded by construction, with businessmen plotting to get Carl’s house out of the way. Carl, alone with pictures and memories, likely spends most of his time wondering how his life went from perfect to misery. A man who was once a balloon vendor at a zoo, who spent his days selling helium and smiles, now grumbles with every knock at his door. And that leads to a confrontation that has him on a one-way trip to a retirement home. And somehow, in less than half an hour, an animated film has craftily shown us an everyday man’s journey – Carl’s once-full life has been taken away, and his back is to the wall.
And, with nothing to lose, Carl takes a desperate chance to hang on to the only thing he has left – his memories. Thousands upon thousands of balloons, he’s sure, are going to take him away from orderlies in white coats, and drop him in what should’ve been he and his wife’s fantasy: the magical Paradise Falls, the place where Charles Muntz, Carl’s childhood hero and disgraced explorer, claimed to have found that fantastical creature. As Carl tries to take control of his life, his house is carried away, with one addition – a pudgy young boy named Russell.
And off they go. Carl has his reservations, of course, because his freedom has now become saddled with responsibility. They’ll run into obstacles, villains, pitfalls, and so on (of course), and they have their adventure. But the fact that Pixar, yet again, can make a simple film work so well, on so many levels, demonstrates how consistently strong their work is. Up is a family film, animated, and should have that fairy tale ending, so there have to be limits and boundaries as to what the movie can do. But the film works those boundaries to their limits, and gives us a full, satisfying, funny escape.
