Ryan McNeil
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” – John Lennon
UP is about a man who makes his house fly by way of thousands of helium balloons. However, it’s also about taking a moment to realize that even tough life didn’t work out the way you’d hoped, you haven’t necessarily been left empty handed.
UP is the story of Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner). As a child he dreams of being a great explorer, but seems to get nervous just leaving his yard. Enter Ellie – an ambitious tomboy who takes a shining to Carl right away. They grow up, get married and share lofty dreams. Unfortunately, life has other ideas, and their lofty dreams go almost entirely unfulfilled. As Carl plans to finally make a few of those dreams come true, Ellie passes away.
As the years pass, Carl finds himself in a tough spot. The neighbourhood around his house is being built into skyscrapers, and he is being forced to leave the house he and Ellie shared, and moved to a retirement home. However, our man Carl has other ideas – the night before he is scheduled to move to the home, he fills thousands of balloons with helium – enough to lift his house off its foundation and majestically fly through the air.
One small problem – Russell, a Junior Wilderness Explorer, was on his front porch when the house lifted off. Thus, our unlikely Lewis, meets an even more unlikely Clark. To his credit, Russell does a good job of steering the house towards the intended destination – South America. It’s here that Carl wants to set the house down at Paradise Falls, and honour his wife’s life wish. However, an endangered bird, a talkative dog, and a long lost explorer seem to have other ideas.
UP, like just about every other animated feature lately, can be seen in 3-D. However, it seldom seems to take advantage of the 3-D, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Rather than lean back and allow gimmicks to cover for a boring story, Pixar focuses on what they o best, and simply allow the 3-D to accent the product…not become their entire reasoning for making the film. In short, if you can’t get to see the 3-D version where you live, rest easy knowing that you aren’t missing much.
Once again, the girls and boys at Pixar have brought the goods for UP, which makes this ten fantastic films in a row. The story starts with classic animated formula – the misfits setting out on a great adventure.
However, the plot becomes so much sweeter, and often much more touching, by infusing it with the nature of relationships…both father/son and husband/wife. Of these, it was the second of the two that really drove the film for me.
It doesn’t take UP very long to show you how bittersweet a story it will be. Matter of fact, I was quite shaken by the sad places this movie takes its audience to in the early going. I was very moved by the story of a man who feels like he let his wife down. He carries the burden of never making her dreams come true so heavily, but what he can’t see is that it wasn’t for lack of trying. Life just…had other ideas…as life sometimes does.
When we lose those closest to us, there is a heavy temptation to cash in our chips and fold. What UP wants to teach us, is that the best thing to do in this situation is to honour the ones we loved so dearly. Like Carl and his thousands of balloons, we should look to the horizon, and live our lives to the fullest. It’s only then that we honour them, and wear their memory like a merit badge on our lapel.
Great review. A beautiful film! One of few recent animated offerings that I’ve really loved. Pixar, of course. I actually liked the 3D in this one. Not in-your-face, which I appreciated, but it accentuated depth and brightness.
I’m not terribly fussed about the fact that every animated film these days is being rendered in 3-D…especially when it really isn’t being utilized.
For me, the best animated 3-D is still HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON. Hard to top a movie that makes the crowd feel like they’re flying.