Up

First of all, Up is not a movie about a cranky old
coot who finds his inner child, with the help of a roly-poly Boy Scout,
during a series of magical adventures experienced from the front porch
of a dilapidated manse held aloft by hundreds of helium-filled
balloons. Such, of course, is the perception advanced by promotional
materials, which sell short the richness and soulfulness of the latest
Pixar picture, the first American animated offering ever to open le
Festival de Cannes.

That is not to fault the trailer, loaded with pretty pictures and
pratfalls intended to woo the wee ones — like a certain giggly,
giddy 5-year-old living in my house, for whom the preview was already
“the best movie ever made.” But it doesn’t prepare you for the actual
moviegoing experience, the emotional punch of Up‘s first few
minutes, when it presents the most heartfelt — the most
sincere — love story in recent memory: the love between a
boy and a girl, who become a man and a woman, who become a husband and
a wife, who become a widower and a memory that haunt the rest of what
follows.

The first 10 minutes of Up are flawless; the final 80
minutes, close enough. (Though, this note: Do not see Up in 3-D.
It’s inessential to the telling of this deeply felt tale and altogether
distracting.)

The movie begins in a theater, with young Carl Fredricksen, through
aviator goggles, reveling in the black-and-white newsreel adventures of
the thrill-seeking Charles Muntz (voiced by Christopher Plummer), for
whom “adventure is out there!” Through happenstance, little Carl
(voiced, barely, by Jeremy Leary) soon meets fellow traveler Ellie
(Elie Docter), and sets out with her on an adventure that will last the
rest of his life. It’s a journey that includes crushing blows (Ellie
can’t have children) and modest highs (the simple joy of renovating a
decaying house till it becomes a Technicolor dream home). The would-be
world travelers stay at home till Ellie’s final breath, restless but
content just to be with each other — in other words,
Revolutionary Road but with love. (And with less blabbing.
Grown-up Carl and Ellie communicate tenderness with little more than a
smile, a frown, a teardrop, a kiss. No words.) Had Up ended
after those first few minutes, that would have been enough for some; at
a recent preview screening, you could hear the adults sniffle. But
behind me, a little girl asked her grandfather with great apprehension,
“Is that the end of the movie?” She clearly hoped not.

Rest assured, it gets funny — the talking dog voiced by writer
and co-director Bob Peterson transcends the hackneyed convention of
animated films. And it’s thrilling, too, as the third act takes place
almost entirely in the sky, atop the mammoth zeppelin piloted by Muntz,
who has been in self-exile in South America, as it turns out, where he
has gone in search of a mythical bird whose existence he’s been trying
to prove for decades at the expense of his sanity. (The movie even
suggests that Muntz, living in a cave with only a pack of dogs as his
company, has murdered other explorers on the hunt to claim his
prize.)

But despite its title, Up is decidedly earthbound: The
elderly Carl (voiced by Ed Asner, though he looks decidedly like a glum
Hal Holbrook) spends almost the entire movie schlepping his house
across the South American landscape, which his wife had always hoped to
visit. Carl is literally tethered to a memory, an anchor with a garden
hose wrapped around his torso to keep his home from floating away. And
he’s kept company by an accidental intruder: Russell (Jordan Nagai), an
even more awkward version of the youthful Carl.

The two are meant for each other: the husband without a wife, the
son without a father, each in desperate need of companionship and
adventure lest they disappear. They both find comfort in memories that
most would consider mundane — sitting on a curb eating ice cream
while counting passing cars or sitting in a comfortable chair next to a
loved one on a sunny afternoon. Their motto: “The boring stuff is the
stuff I remember the most.”

Perhaps by now, all of this sounds unbearably sad and undeniably
grown-up, but it is. Pixar movies have been moving in this direction
for years — adult animation sprinkled with just enough
shenanigans to entertain the kids while we get our weep on. Consider
the protagonists: adults stuck in the middle and on their way further
down, but trying like hell to claw their way back up. Monsters,
Inc., directed by Up co-director Pete Docter, was about
midlevel drones sick of their jobs; The Incredibles, superheroes
sick of suburban mediocrity; Ratatouille, a rat escaping the
filthy sewer for a five-star kitchen. To that estimable lot add Carl,
who waited till he was alone and at the end of his life to discover how
much living was left to be done.