Pixar’s latest animated film, its 10th, is a sign that the studio’s creative innovations haven’t stopped. Refusing to take the easier path of self-imitation, of safe storytelling so typical of Hollywood, director Peter Doctor (Monsters Inc.) and his team explore one of entertainment’s final character frontiers, old people. Carl Fredericksen is a mid-70s-age old coot, widowed from his beloved wife Ellie and feeling lost in a world that is plunging ahead without him. A character of square shapes relieved only by a round nose, the motif of a man set in his ways, finds the perfect voice supplied by Ed Asner. Childless and frustrated, Carl decides to fulfill his and Ellie’s unrealized dream of exploring a great hidden Venezuelan tabletop mountain by floating there in his old wooden house carried along by thousands of colorful balloons. Unintentionally along for the ride is an eight-year old Wilderness Explorer, Russell. The two unlikely adventurers form the most unlikely buddy team in the tradition of pairing two diverse characters as they float down to the strange world that hold many surprises.
In the past Pixar features have transcended the forms they adopted with inventive variations on their inspirations. A Bug’s Life followed the essential story beats of The Magnificent Seven, and its inspiration, The Seven Samurai transplanted into an insectoid faceoff. Finding Nemo was an under-the-sea Odyssey; The Incredibles followed the basic conventions of superhero comics, and Cars was essentially an automotive Doc Hollywood. But nothing in Up reminded me of familiar forms and the story starts off in Carl’s young boyhood and in minutes arcs through his life with his beloved wife until he is widowed in a touching wordless montage. The rapid-fire gags of Monsters Inc. or the Toy Story films gives way in the film to a more gradual build as characters are introduced, and discoveries are made that begin to tie together the themes of loss and appreciation of both the past and embracing the future with hope. Of course, such heavy material is hoisted aloft by wild chases, stunts and rescues as an adversary emerges to challenge our heroes in their quest. And talking dogs piloting biplanes.
Such an unusual story structure, rather than leaving me with the satisfaction of the familiar well executed, instead left me with a series of unforgettable images, of a house floating through the sky on balloons, using shower curtain sails to skirt a thunderstorm, of Carl dragging his floating house behind him with a rope, an indelible symbol of our sometimes questionable attachment to the past, and of a scrapbook that reveals that a quiet life with the one you love to be a great adventure indeed. This is perhaps the most poignant–but fun– film Pixar has made, and that’s saying something.
