Review: Up
Up is a movie far stranger, and far more moving, than the one I was expecting. I thought I’d signed up for what really could have been the 20-minute short film version of the same movie, stripped of the extra layer or two of complication. And that would have been effective, and I would have enjoyed it, dewy-eyed and with a newfound appreciation of life and old people and aging, and that would have been it.
See, in this movie, balloon salesman Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner) is a widower, refusing to move from the house of his dreams despite the large-scale construction surrounding him. It’s the house where, as a boy, he bonded with a little girl named Ellie, and later where they spent their married lives. When Ellie dies, he becomes more protective of his property, and when it’s encroached upon, he fights back and, one thing leading to another, is eventually forced to leave. But not without his house! He lets fly the balloons and sails to his and Ellie’s dream location in South America.
It goes on from there, in a couple of directions – but if it didn’t, that’d be the short film I described earlier. Right near the beginning, a beautiful, extended wordless montage takes us through his and Ellie’s lives. It sets the stage wonderfully, yet I’d have been satisfied with that dense little love story as is.
That’s the heart of the movie, Carl’s relationship with Ellie. From the extended first passage to other moments threaded through, it’s only superseded (in time, if not in significance) by his grandfatherly rapport with young Russell, a “Wilderness Explorer” (Boy Scout) and stowaway on the house-in-flight. They each make an animal friend in South America, Russell with Kevin (a rare local bird) and Carl with Doug (a dog owned by a SPOILER). Not entirely unlike the Wizard of Oz, Carl-as-Dorothy takes his flying house and proceeds en route with these three pilgrims. But in a twist on that story, the Wizard is off to see them, and that’s where the movie takes its dark, weird turn.
Turns are fine when they don’t make me ask questions that aren’t otherwise addressed or answered in the film itself. Turns out there were a lot of these, questions or things that otherwise stretched my disbelief too far (way beyond moving a house via balloons). And it left an unwelcome taste, though one that didn’t detract from other character arcs in the movie.
How dare this movie make me feel! I was looking for a breezy, optimistic puff-pastry but ended up with, not to continue the metaphor, an arguably well-balanced movie that evens out the sentimentality of the main plot with a weighty, adventurous side that doesn’t let the entire feature-length ordeal get carried away with itself (sigh).
It’s tough, but I can’t not compare this to Wall-E, Pixar’s previous release. I preferred Wall-E because the story seemed more coherent, the protagonist more charming, the antagonist less random, the world more interesting and engrossing. Up is gorgeously rendered, of course – that almost goes without saying, and is no small feat, and like Avatar, goes so far in earning the whole production its rightful praise. The focus on the older gentleman reminds me of Geri’s Game, the Pixar short film from 1997 in which an old man plays chess with… himself (and whose doppleganger – or something – shows up in Toy Story 2 as a toy repairman). And whatever makes that short film’s depiction of an elderly man so appealing, interesting and compelling, works here also. The drawbacks I see are narrative-related. Up is a very, very good movie, and one I recommend, and one I wish I could have enjoyed more than I did.
3.5 stars
