Up (2009)

Carl, an elderly loner, having grown old with and then lost his wife, decides to head off on the adventure they had always planned but never embarked upon - a trip to South America to visit Paradise Falls. He takes his house, care of thousands of helium balloons and, unwittingly, a stowaway in the shape of young Russell, a Wilderness Explorer keen to complete his set of badges with one for helping the elderly.

*****

I came to Up knowing quite a lot about it. It was supposed to be for the most part a little inferior to more recent Pixar high water marks as Wall-E and Ratatouille and apparently contained an opening montage as heart-breaking and affecting as anything in modern cinema. What I found with Up was what I feel to be an almost peerless achievement in modern animation. Rarely have I enjoyed a film as moving, involving and, yes, heart-breaking as this one. For sure, some of the pacing once Carl and Russell arrive in Venezuela is a little off and although the concluding airship/biplane set piece is exciting enough, it falls sort of the spectacle and adrenaline wallop of the finales of Monsters Inc, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo and Toy Story to name a few. But that is entirely beside the point. Firstly, the protagonist for the final showdown is in his 70's, making it unlikely that he is going to be sprightly enough for terribly physical confrontation. The physical exertions and slips, falls and fights are entirely in keeping with the characters, which is part of what makes it so compelling. Rather than a hero of limitless strength and ability, we have a relatively frail man, straining every sinew to prevail. Secondly, the film is not intended to be a set-piece showcase. It is intended to be about a man enjoying a long-postponed adventure and giving a young boy a sense of belonging and being needed. On these points it emphatically succeeds.

That opening montage, as we see Carl and his wife Ellie meet, fall in love, marry, find they cannot have children, settle into domestic life, decorate their house, constantly postpone their trip to Venezuela and culminating in Ellie's death is indeed moving in the extreme. Not a word is spoken, yet everything is so effortlessly portrayed. It is not sentimental or saccharine, rather deeply and enduringly affecting. It is quite simply one of the finest sequences of animation ever committed to the screen.

Beyond the montage the film is packed full of great ideas - dogs with collars that translate their thoughts into speech ("squirrel!", "point!"), moving house by helium balloon, a crazy, chocolate-loving bird called Kevin, the "collar of shame", on and on we go and yet there is no sense of showing off, no halting of the flow of the story to wink and show us how funny and creative they all are. It is seamlessly woven into the fabric of the film, making you smile the whole way through until at the end, as Russell receives his one missing badge and looks around in vain for his always-travelling father, Carl steps up behind him and says "I'm here for him". Your hearts breaks and melts at the same time, you cry and smile in equal measure. A truly incredible achievement from an already peerless studio.