"Up"
(2009, Pete Docter adn Bob Peterson, USA)
Average Contributor Rating: .

Up’s protagonist is a crotchety old man named Carl Frederickson who, in the opening minutes of the film (not a spoiler), loses his wife and his house in somewhat unrelated events. In these opening minutes, writer-directors Pete Docter and Bob Peterson heap on the emotion, playing Carl’s relationship with, and loss of, his effervescent wife with the kind of heart-wrenching, tear-jerking beauty that Pixar has been less and less reluctant to use as the years go by. Evocative of the final minutes of Wall-E and Jessie’s story about her old owner in Toy Story 2, Up’s opening minutes are tragic in their normalcy, heartbreaking in just how real they are. It’s a brave decision that creates an ever-present sense of loss and sadness that’s hard for the film to shake; however, this melancholic undercurrent of grief is what drives the film, making it the fantastically rewarding experience that it becomes.

Up tells a tale about that most universal of themes – what, and who, we live for and how we connect with each other. Carl is the “emotional bedrock” of this tale, and from the beginning we’re invested fully in his lonely existence. His undying commitment to his dead wife is the only thing that seems to keep him going any more, and it’s this commitment that causes him to tie hundreds of helium balloons to his house and float to Paradise Falls, a mysterious and vibrant location that his wife longed to relocate to before her death. However, much to Carl’s chagrin, tenacious young Wilderness Explorer Russell finds himself trapped on Carl’s porch as he takes off, and inadvertently becomes the old man’s travelling buddy. As the film progresses, though, Carl and Russell are revealed to be more complex creatures than the bitter old man and excitable kid they appear to be on the surface. Both of these men, one young and one old, are committed to one person in their life –Russell, his father; Carl, his dead wife – and are single-mindedly dedicated to these loves. Russell’s hunting of the fictitious snipe, which leads to his unanticipated role as Carl’s companion, is fuelled by a desire to attain a ‘Helping the Elderly’ badge and subsequently have his father validate Russell’s commitment at a ceremony; similarly, Carl’s unconventional move to Paradise Falls is motivated by his guilt over his belief that he never gave his wife the one adventure she wanted. Docter and Peterson handle the arcs of these two characters with subtlety and thoughtfulness, and their budding relationship feels natural and in no way pushed on the audience.

The excellent narrative and character work here is enhanced by a wacky sense of humour and some fantastic voice work. The animals in the film, particularly the dogs, are fantastically-written characters, and they create much of the humour in the great script (the Cone of Shame and the “SQUIRREL!” running joke are both class). Ed Asner is perfectly cast as Carl, and he brings the old man to life with great comic timing and a reservoir of emotion to tap into when needed.  Acting as his foil, young first-timer Jordan Nagai has the kind of infectious enthusiasm and naïveté that makes Russell such a likable character, and he tackles the more emotionally demanding parts of the character with skill and believability. Credit should also go to Peterson, whose voice work as the dim-witted dog Dug and his moral opposite, the evil Doberman Alpha, is hilarious and genuinely inspired.

The film is also a visual feast, a wonder to behold at the best of times. Carl’s floating house is an image simple in its stunning beauty, and Paradise Falls itself is a grandiose place reminiscent of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World. A stunning forest with an imposing plateau of rock jutting out of the centre of it, it proves an imposing and aesthetically striking setting for what is, at its heart, a tale that deals with the human condition at its most simple and most relatable. Up may not be Pixar’s best film, but it is undeniably its most emotionally mature and nuanced, a bittersweet fable that speaks to the romantic in all of us. . AG.

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“Up”, the latest film from the Disney Pixar studio, tells the story of Carl Fredrickson (voiced by Ed Asner). Carl is a grumpy old man who has recently lost his wife. The grief re-awakens in him his adventurous spirit that he possessed as a youth, and so he decides to strap thousands of helium-inflated balloons to his house and take to the air, headed for Venezuela and – in particular – Paradise Falls, where he and his wife had always planned to go. Taking along for the ride local youth Russell (Jordan Nagai). When in South America, they meet a dog named Dug (co-director Bob Peterson), a bird named Kevin, and an evil explorer named Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer).

It’s very easy to fall into clichés when writing a review of the latest Pixar film. I reckon that two thirds of the critics have said one of the following three things; “it’s Pixar’s best film yet!”, “Pixar have done it again!”, “it’s possibly Pixar’s most endearing film to date”. Unfortunately, though, it’s not Pixar’s best film yet. “Monsters Inc”, “Toy Story”, and “Wall-E” are all superior films, and “Toy Story II”, “Ratatouille”, “A Bug’s Life”, and “Finding Nemo” are probably all on the same level. That’s not an insult, though, because “Up” is holding very respectable company in those four films, and second tier Pixar does, as a rule, implicate superior quality to first class Dreamworks.

Another rule dictates that Pixar are never going to stray to far from their usual formula. Here, we get another fish out of water story (like “Wall-E”, “Toy Story”, or – more literally – “Finding Nemo”), which features an odd-couple/band-of-unlikely-brothers subplot (“Monsters Inc”, “A Bug’s Life”, “Wall-E”, “Toy Story”), which suspends disbelief (“Toy Story”, “Monsters Inc”), and plays heavily on both the funny bone and the heart strings (just about everything, minus “Cars”). One day, I might say that this tried and tested formula is getting old, but it doesn’t appear to be doing so yet, because it still works to maximum effect. Perhaps the old age maxim (or cliché) of if it aint broke, don’t fix it, which tends not to apply when it comes to films (if something gets done too much, it becomes systematic or conventional) actually works with Pixar, because I doubt that the next sequence of films to come from he studio – being a sequel to “Cars” and a threequel to “Toy Story” – will really break the mould.

But as already stated, that’s not a bad thing, because I stepped into the movie theatre asking for two things; heart and humour. Obviously, I got both of those things in bucket loads, particularly the humour. Although both “Ratatouille” and “Wall-E” are fantastic films, I think that this is probably the funniest Pixar (and animated) film since 2004’s “Finding Nemo”, with one-liners, visual humour, and recurring jokes creating a labyrinth of funny. The laughs don’t really let up, with directors Docter and Peterson introducing as many characters as humanly possible, simply to reach the end goal of providing more jokes. Kevin is here for physical humour, whilst Dug is our slapstick guy, and Alpha, Beta, and Gamma’s character names alone bring a slight (but not smug) sophistication to proceedings. The heart is present too, and at times the film can pack some real emotional punch. The death of Carl’s wife (not a spoiler; it happens about five minutes into the film) is one of Pixar’s most powerful moments, and it’s sure to get the tears going for anyone of a weak emotional disposition.

Theme-wise, “Up” is equally as strong as its predecessor. The creative team, just like in “Wall-E”, have slipped in some big themes, like an attack on corporate house building companies who trounce over land owners, and the lack of street smarts which the children of today possess, but – in actuality – “Up” is about the most universal of themes. It’s about getting old but living life to the full nonetheless, about love and life, and about relationships mattering more than possessions, materialism, and even dreams. The comradeship of the four main characters tells us that we are stronger together, and the relationship between Carl and Russell states that love and affection is more important than any real blood relation.

There’s really not a bad thing that you can say about “Up”. Visually, it’s amazing, and if you see it in 3D then you’re in for a real treat (although the trailer for Robert Zemeckis’ “A Christmas Carol” probably included more 3D trickery than the entire Pixar film). The characterization is superb, and – for the first time since “Finding Nemo” – the laughs actually outweigh the power and heart. And it’s not like I was blinding by the Pixar cloud. In fact, I was extra-picky, wanting to find something wrong with the film so that I could report something other than the norm. I couldn’t find anything substantially off in “Up” at all. It lacks the adult humour of “Toy Story”, and it doesn’t match the silent segment in “Wall-E”, sure, but – as said before – second tier Pixar is better than first tier anything else. . JB.
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