Up

If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend Pixar’s new film, Up. It is one of the best of recent memory. I continue to be impressed with Pixar, not only because of their technical prowess and writing skills, but because of their dedication to the art form of animation. Having seen Disney lose touch with this and degrade animation for so many years, it’s refreshing to find a company with as much respect for the style as Pixar.

Up’s plot is very original, which is probably the first reason that it’s intriguing. That said, originality isn’t enough; I found Ratatouille to be lacking in terms of how compelling the plot was, although original. There was no reason to care. Up avoids this neatly. The plot is funny, both juvenile and mature at the same time, and extremely compelling. The story speaks to many generations at once. The more childish element urges children to do what they love, and to live what they love. All of the characters embody this from minute one – young children hungry for adventure, idolizing famous explorers, and a Boy Scout with a complicated family past who seems to take pride in actually doing important things for other people for no other reason than it’s all has. But the movie is really about growing up. I found the first fifteen minutes, in which we meet the main character as a small child, are introduced to his future wife at the same age, and then experience a montage of their lives together, ending with her death, to be sweet, touching, and sometimes tragic. It sets up the rest of the movie elegantly; we understand this old geezer better than any other character like him. We know what he was like as a kid, we know how he grew up, and we feel the way he feels about Paradise Falls. The montage also allows the plot to pick up immediately, without lagging around waiting for the backstory to develop. Twenty minutes into the film, he’s already tied balloons to his house and is floating away. That’s a pretty good record, in terms of the amount of things that have to happen to get to that point. Pixar is to be credited with keeping the movie moving without sacrificing any important information.

As the movie progresses, we see the characters change. In my opinion, that’s really the most important part of a movie or play. Why should we care what these people go through? We need to empathize with them. Up is very good at this – because of our knowledge of the characters’ backgrounds, we empathize very strongly with them, and we see them change in a way that seems natural and almost personal.

The conclusion of the movie is heartwarming enough that it could be written off as canned or unoriginal, but I found it to be a perfect ending. This is because it doesn’t just end the plot, it ties it together. We see what it is that the characters have been missing, and they finally find it. Mr. Fredericksen’s house is finally at rest by the falls, and Russell and him form an somewhat familial bond. It’s sweet to have a movie remind you that being driven doesn’t mean ignoring others, that you can do good while still getting what you want. Up is a very good movie for right now, when, societally, people feel a lot of pressure to either prioritize themselves or others. We’re made to feel as though we either need to become more insular and care about ourselves only, or we need to be so selfless that we intimidate others by our virtue. Up strikes an ideal balance between these two extremes. We’d do well to mimic that philosophy of worldliness.