Pure Genius

Up Review

The people at Pixar perform a master-class on story with practically every film they put out now.

Toy Story, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Wall-E, and now with Up: these folks create modern classics on a near-yearly basis.

For my money, Up is their best at least since The Incredibles and maybe their best ever (full disclosure, I haven’t seen Monsters, Inc. or A Bug’s Life, though I’ve seen all the others).

I loved this movie so thoroughly I almost despair at giving anything away to people who haven’t seen it. Thus below you’ll find a non-spoiler review and a spoiler review below it.

Non-spoiler review

As they have been doing for some time now, Pixar makes movies with big concepts very human and relatable. In this case, grumpy old man Carl Fredrickson makes his house fly away with a gajillion balloons, headed to South America with an unlikely passenger in a kid Boy Scout (in the film he’s called a Wilderness Explorer) named Russell.

That’s pretty much given to you in the trailers, so that’s all I’m giving in the non-spoiler review. Without ruining the wonderful surprises in store let me say the following:

The film has heartfelt and effectively dramatized messages about death and loss.

The visual world is both epic and extremely creative.

It’s often very funny, and the action is truly thrilling.

At a pure story level it’s practically flawless in a classical three-act structure way. Characters arc, stakes are raised effectively, etc.

The dialogue is very funny and characters have their own voices.

It’s simply a work of genius, if this script came into an agency and was reviewed it would get a very high grade.

SPOILER REVIEW

Okay let’s get down to it.

Up is so good it deserves to be analyzed, here goes.

Visual Storytelling

The film does a great job at creating visual correlates for ideological constructs. The weight of Carl’s widow is literally on his shoulder as he drags their house around on his back, via a hose. 

The eventual letting go of that emotional weight is very nicely symbolized, as it inevitably had to be in this story construction, by the house flying away.

Emotional Core

In a silent-montage that’s probably only a minute or two long Up sells us completely on Carl and Ellie’s life together. It does this through details both big and small.

Their repeated habits, picnicking, saving money to go to Paradise Falls but never getting to use it, sitting around reading, up to Ellie’s eventual death, all these moments create a believable romantic relationship. It’s simple but so effective.

It also shows us how Carl uses to be a happy-go-lucky guy until Ellie died, which makes us both understand why he’s cranky now and root for him to return to his old ways.

A New World

A great thing about Up is it takes us somewhere we could never imagine, a place where dogs can talk and an old man can fly a house. Even the Paradise Falls location itself is so lush and breathtaking it feels like an alien world.

Villain We Understand

Apart from the loveliness of having Muntz be a Kurtz (from Heart of Darkness) reference, Up does a great job explaining his character.

We know Muntz was embarassed when people claimed his discovered new animal skeleton was a fraud, and the fact he’s been in Paradise Falls this long trying to amend that shame adds credence to his insanity.

The collection of skulls/helmets doesn’t hurt either.

But we get where his rage and madness come from, it’s not just meanness out of nowhere.

Likeable Characters

There’s the cowardly but loving dog Dug, the playful mother ostrich-like creature “Kevin” who wants to return to her children, the Boy Scout Russell who wants to get his last badge so he can see his dad and of course Carl himself who not only wants to do right by Ellie but as we know lost his chance at a child when his wife either couldn’t conceive or miscarried (the film is ambigious on this point).

Anyway, the point is, by imbuing all these characters with goals everyone can relate to, Up makes us root for all its leads, human or otherwise.

Sense of Danger

There are some action scenes in Up that are genuinely thrilling, where it seems Carl and Co. are a hair’s breadth from death. I literally gasped a few times during this movie.

Take for example when the Muntz’s airship tilts and the window Carl falls against opens, sending him out into the sky. That’s a gripping moment, undeniably.

There’s also an epic scale, particularly to that last airship sequence, that’s really effective at imbuing a sense of wonder.

Bottom Line

In case it’s not blatantly obvious I absolutely adored Up, which is easily the best movie I’ve seen this year. Go see it now.