Up

Rating PG Genre animated Starring Jordan Nagai, Edward Asner , Christopher Plummer, John Ratzenberger, Delroy Lindo Directed by Pete Docter Publisher Disney/Pixar

Warning! This review contains spoilers! You've been warned!

Nothing else can really be said about Pixar at this point that won't inflate egos or make the company seem like anything but the genius' they are. The power of that genius is not only the dollar signs that Disney so strongly associates with their productions, but also the studio's strengthening commitment to storytelling. Film after film, Pixar creates something more than Happy Meals toys, action figures, and PSP games (all of these will exist regardless of the merit of the film). Except for Cars.

In UP, the next in succession to the successful and ambitious 2008 film Wall-E, Pete Docter and Bob Peterson (Monsters Inc., Wall-E)  take the reins on Peterson's brilliant and heartwarming screenplay about a mismatched pair of adventurers. The first Pixar movie to be shown in Disney 3D, it is more than worth it to pay the extra money for the glasses. The colors, sweeping camera, and sharp animation all match the work Wall-E had established last summer. Wall-E may still have a visual leg up on UP, but this picture makes the firm decision to explore the human condition over tons of eye candy. 

UP is touching, uplifting, and undoubtedly the saddest movie in theaters right now. The main character is 78-year-old Carl Fredrickson (voiced by Ed Asner), a man we are first introduced to as a child, watching a news update in a theater. The story is of his hero, the great adventurer Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer) bravely exploring a lost wilderness in South America. Muntz brings back a giant, seemingly impossible bird skeleton from his travels that science decries as a fraud. Undeterred, Muntz returns to South America, swearing to return only when he's captured the bird alive. 

Carl's trip home from the theater brings him to an abandoned house where he meets Ellie, a girl just as obsessed with adventure as he is. They meet, hilarity ensues, and soon there's a montage of them getting married, buying the childhood house they played in, and growing old together. As they grow older, they save money (and spend it) for their trip to South America Carl promised Ellie on the first day they met. A picture of their house on the edge of a waterfall is painted by Ellie and set in their living room, a constant symbol for an unfulfilled dream they plan to share one day. The film is careful to not make the aging comical or ridiculous, but just that life gets in the way of big plans and before you know it, both are older senior citizens. Before their South American trip can take place, Ellie dies, leaving Carl alone in the house of memories they built over a lifetime together. His once quiet neighborhood is now a city block, his house in the middle of a huge building development dominated by suits wearing dark glasses. The symbol of a quaint house surrounded by “progress” endears Carl further to the audience as an underdog, left behind as the world passed him and his house by.

It's painful to watch Carl in these early scenes of the movie. He shuffles from room to room, always framed in half filled shots where the love of his life once filled the second half of the screen. One fateful day, the mailbox that he and Ellie had painted the day they moved into the house is knocked down by a dump truck (a mechanical and sterile symbol of modern life). He goes berserk, strikes the man that harmed a symbol of his dead wife, and he is forced by court order to move into a retirement village. Instead of surrendering to the men that come to take him away, he strings his house up with thousands of balloons to finally go to South America to see this land removed from time. The trip is not only seen as an escape for himself. A man like Carl doesn't run away from his problems. Instead, he gives everyone what they want; the developers get the land to build on, the city looses a “dangerous” citizen, and Ellie's memory (personified as the house) finally gets to go to South America. As they fly off into the sky, Carl sits in the chair next to his wife's favorite chair, again throwing the balance of the frame totally off. 

It seems like the adventure starts here, but really, the movie has already taken the audience through the emotional gauntlet with nothing but a series of animated images set an unbelievable soundtrack  by  Michael Giacchino (Lost, Ratatouille) in the first 15 minutes. It seems like you've always known Carl, that disrespect for a modern world that has no time or place for content, only progress. From here, the second lead is introduced. Russel, a 8-year-old boy trying to earn his final merit badge by helping a senior citizen in need. This boy is no relationship to Carl. The odd-couple pairing seems to be a mis-step at first glance. This buddy comedy should have no place in a film of this caliber, but again, Docter and Peterson offer more than the surface in this one. 

The real themes of UP focus on what we truly value. For Carl, the initial value is the house full of possessions and memories of his former life. His youth, his familiarity, and his fondest memories with his wife all lie in a single object. For Russel, his life is dominated by the softness of his lifestyle (“I never thought the wilderness would be so wild”) and his dependence on a giant pack of cutting-edge outdoor gear. As the film progresses, we find that Russel is unable to utilize most of his fantastic equipment because he's never used it before. He doesn't know how to set-up a tent, how to hang on to his fancy GPS, he doesn't even understand if he uses the bathroom or digs the hole first.

Russel's backpack is all stuff with no human connection or function. In Russel's dependence on his gear, you see Carl's reliance on his house. As Russel opens up, he explains that his Dad is never there to show him how to use his equipment. All of his possessions are to give him a greater link to the physical world. He wants to have his equipment because he thinks it will facilitate better communication and bonding with his father. 

Carl's problem is the inverse. He uses the excuse of his possessions and his memories associated with those memories to lock out the outside world. In order to really feel better about the turn in his life, he has to give up all those things he thinks he needs. Symbolically, the two unmistakable chairs Carl and Ellie used to sit in are discarded so Carl is able to help Russel. No longer does the frame look awkward or do we feel pity for the discarded items. We feel vindication and joy as Carl reclaims happiness and  sets his life (and the shots of the film) into balance. 

The character's, including the adventurer Muntz, all meet in the same place in South America as the ruthless Muntz continues to hunt down the bird that will restore his credibility. In contrast to Carl and Russel, Muntz is unable to relinquish the things that control him; objects. He is obsessed by showing the world how great he is, rather than acting rightly by others. His goals are based on image and the drive to posses everything, alive or dead. 

It doesn't take an adult watching this film to realize that the true value of one's life isn't how much junk you can pile into a house, but impact you make on a daily basis in the lives of others. Carl realizes the adventure he had always planned on happening in South America with his wife isn't the one that happened. Living life was the thrill, the first adventure he had the privileged of experiencing. His second adventure, life after the death of a loved one, is far more difficult, frightening, and unsure. When he is able to accept that same spirit of adventure he had when he met his wife 70 years ago with his new friends, he can began living life again in a fulfilling, meaningful way. 

Pixar has delivered another rich film which may have no equal in the current world of animation. The boldness by scale (a death like this hasn't happened with Disney since Bambi's mom) and imagination in storytelling isn't just refreshing, it's empowering. Every artist that wants to appeal to a mainstream audience should see this film and cheer. Yes, there's some cheese ball jokes you'd find in any children's movie and yes there's a happy ending. That doesn't detract from a film with message, character, and fantastic substance. UP is incredibly heavy for the thoughtful adult. It questions some of the very bedrocks of American consumerism, the value of elderly people, and the great contrast of life after death. UP is a masterpiece, an instant Oscar bid for best picture, and the best movie of 2009 at this point. See it in 3D before the opportunity floats away.