Up

...shocking orange hair that sticks up like a porcupine.

Ellie is everything that Carl is not, and he’s thoroughly fascinated… in fact, he’s so spellbound by the loud and excitable orange-haired girl, that he can’t seem to find his voice when she’s near him – but that doesn’t matter because she speaks enough for the two of them!

Although totally different, the two children share the same love of adventure, and their shared ...
...as well, and I picked up on the subtlety of a story that although appearing simple, is far from simple. There is a depth to Carl and Ellie that is all too human, especially with Carl, and within this depth of character is a story all its own… the reason why Carl is as he is… his fears, his sadness, his loneliness… there’s so much more to Carl than meets the eye. At times, as an old man, he appears so incredibly aggressive and stubborn, yet having ... more

Director: Pete Docter & Bob Peterson
Screenplay: Pete Docter & Bob Peterson
Genre: Animation – Family – Adventure – Comedy
Country: USA
Certification: PG
Language: English

MAIN CAST - VOICES:

Carl Fredricksen [Edward Asner]
Young Carl [Jeremy Leary]
Young Ellie [Elie Docter]
Russell [Jordan Nagai]
Charles Muntz [Christopher Plummer]

It all happened on a lazy summer day… Carl, just a child, meets Ellie, a boisterous little girl with shocking orange hair that sticks up like a porcupine.

Ellie is everything that Carl is not, and he’s thoroughly fascinated… in fact, he’s so spellbound by the loud and excitable orange-haired girl, that he can’t seem to find his voice when she’s near him – but that doesn’t matter because she speaks enough for the two of them!

Although totally different, the two children share the same love of adventure, and their shared ambition is to one day become great explorers like their hero Charles Muntz. In fact, Ellie is so keen on one day living a great adventure, that she’s prepared a scrapbook that will contain the memories. She shows her scrapbook to Carl and makes him promise that one day he’ll take her to the wilds of South America so that she can live her great adventure. Carl promises.

Unfortunately… life has a way of intruding, and plans often go awry, and it is much later in life, when he’s an old man, that Carl will finally make good on his promise to Ellie – even if he has to tie thousands of balloons to his home in order to do so.

I wasn’t quite sure of what to expect when I sat down to watch this movie. Being a Disney movie, I knew that it would possess some really good CGI animation, that it would have a few laugh aloud moments and that the story would be suitable for the entire family… mostly young children.

Wrong.

Although it does possess a few laugh aloud moments, is a great animation and is rated PG and therefore suitable for the entire family, I can’t imagine that very young children would find it entertaining. The truth is… I absolutely bawled my heart out for the first twenty minutes, felt extreme sadness for Carl for a further ten minutes, and then cried during the last ten minutes of the movie! Honestly… I sat down to watch ‘Up’ in the hopes that it would cheer me ‘up’ - no pun intended - and spent most of the movie wiping my eyes with a bit of crumpled tissue I’d managed to find at the bottom of my purse. Had I known the movie would be so heartbreaking, I would have brought a box of tissues!

No doubt this wasn’t what Disney had intended - not entirely - but the sadness very much reminded me of the very first Disney movie I ever saw - ‘Bambi’. I remember crying like a baby when Bambi’s mother was killed, and 40 years later, Disney has managed to make me cry again for Carl, for his loss, for the sadness and loneliness he experiences, for growing old and being misunderstood.

True, the addition of 8-year-old Russell as the boisterous Wilderness Explorer does lighten the mood, and Carl and Russell’s hair-raising adventure as the house floats off towards South America presents the audience with some incredibly funny moments, not to mention the arrival of some pretty crazy and unique characters such as a talking dog and a gigantic chocolate-loving bird, but the sadness intrudes on a regular basis, and we are too often reminded of the reasons why Carl is determined to make it to South America.

This is one of those movies that can’t really be discussed in detail because it inevitably gives too much away, and in so doing would spoil it for the viewer. I found that total ignorance of the story made me love it all the more.

True… I cried… and cried and cried… but I laughed as well, and I picked up on the subtlety of a story that although appearing simple, is far from simple. There is a depth to Carl and Ellie that is all too human, especially with Carl, and within this depth of character is a story all its own… the reason why Carl is as he is… his fears, his sadness, his loneliness… there’s so much more to Carl than meets the eye. At times, as an old man, he appears so incredibly aggressive and stubborn, yet having seen the years go by and witnessed Carl’s life firsthand, we know that it’s all a façade… yet an outsider wouldn’t know this… would never even suspect.

My point is, we tend to judge people by their actions without ever bothering to discover the why of things… especially elderly people… we usually attribute their quirky behaviour to being ‘old’ when the truth of the matter is that we are what we are because of the experiences we have had during the course of our lives. Depending on what has happened and how we reacted will be the deciding factor.

As for Carl, although he is constantly remembering the good times he shared with Ellie, each happy memory is accompanied by a sad one. They had a good life together with its ups and downs, yet he feels that in some way he could have made Ellie happier, that he should have tried harder to keep the promise he made so long ago to her, to take her on an adventure to South America.

When Carl finally decides to fulfil his promise to Ellie, his attitude, far from lightening, becomes all the more intense… he’s a man on a mission… but Russell’s presence, although an obstacle, is exactly what Carl needs. The two, although incredibly different, desperately need each other. Carl needs Russell in order to understand that there’s more to life than fulfilling a promise that was never meant to be fulfilled, and Russell needs a male ‘grandfatherly’ presence in his life in order to help him come to terms with his father’s constant absence.

Carl, from his early years to the present, has always lived his life for Ellie. Everything he did revolved around Ellie, and although he had always wanted to be an explorer, never was his passion as great as Ellie’s. Her exuberance for life guided him, kept him afloat, and although, by her own avowal, she was always happy with him, he feels as though he’s let her down… or held her back. What Carl fails to realise was that they never got to be great explorers because they were busy living. They may not have visited South America, but they accomplished other things that were just as fulfilling. That is the greatest message to be found in this movie… lost time… wanting desperately to do something with your life but never achieving your goals. The message is subtle, but the answer isn’t… it’s loud and clear… unless, of course, you’re a child. There is no such thing as an ‘empty’ life. Goals may not have been achieved, but that doesn’t mean you haven’t ‘experienced’ life.

I loved this movie regardless of the sad tone to it… I loved little loud-mouthed Russell with his child’s exuberance and curiosity, with his innocence and purity of heart – I loved young and old Carl because of his innate goodness and unwavering love for Ellie – I loved Ellie for being clever, boisterous, witty, and energetic… I can find only one fault with this movie, and it’s Russell’s unclear family background. Is his father dead? Is he just absent a lot? Where’s Russell’s mother? Although we see a dark-haired woman at the end, we are never certain that it’s Russell’s mother. Russell is such a wonderful character, I felt he deserved, like Carl, to have a history which would have given him more depth.

All in all, an extremely entertaining movie, regardless of the tears and sadness, thought-provoking, humorous, and as always with Disney movies, there’s a not-so-hidden message worthy of being investigated more closely. Although children below the age of 12 might not appreciate the ‘grown-up’ content, they will however love Carl and Russell’s great adventure.

 

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