Review: Up

It doesn’t happen often enough, certainly not as much as it once did, but every now and again, up on the magic screen that expresses the best and worst of Hollywood, something special happens – a moment of perfection that allows you to ease back and relax in the knowledge that you’re in the very best of storytelling hands. Pixar’s tenth and best film, “Up,” opens in just this way, with a montage bearing witness to the childhood friendship, courtship, marriage and old age of Carl and Ellie Fredricksen (Ed Asner and Elie Doctor).

There’s nothing terribly special about the life of the Mr. and Mrs. Fredricksen.  They shared no slow motion runs on the beach or proposals of marriage atop the Eiffel Tower. There’s was an ordinary existence built on abiding love and the moments of the everyday. But it’s from the familiar that the power of this unforgettable sequence comes from. We relate to the decades that pass between them, recognizing them as our own. And when Ellie dies, leaving Carl without his soul mate, we also recognize that they pass much too quickly.  

Carl and Ellie had dreamed of an extraordinary life. One filled with travel and adventure. But reality always intruded, eating their savings and worst of all, the years. Today, at 78, Carl seems content to bide his time alone until he can rejoin Ellie, but reality intrudes once again when Carl’s faced with life in a nursing home. His decision to inflate thousands of helium balloons and float his house to South America has little to do with a desire for adventure. He’s hanging on to Ellie in the last way he knows how – by finally living out their dream.

Along for the ride is Russell (Jordan Nagai), an 8-year-old Junior Wilderness Explorer and accidental stowaway. Filled with hyper-enthusiasm and a fearlessness borne of his ability to see the “cool!” in every situation – no matter how dangerous, he drives poor, grumpy Carl — who wants only to peacefully and in solitude live out his days on a cliff next to a waterfall — nuts. (more…)