UP (2009)

2 years ago

UP (2009)

I HID UNDER YOUR PORCH BECAUSE I LOVE YOU.

by Michelle Said

Okay, so here’s the thing: no, I didn’t see whatever indie darling cinema hipster piece of art that has been lately catered to my demographic and no, I didn’t see anything that made me think of an ex-boyfriend and weep into my pillow covertly after becoming quiet and sullen in the company of my friends and no, there was no Moment of Realization in the middle of some cinematic tour de force that made me reexamine my life and OH MY GOD I AM SO TIRED OF SERIOUS FILMS. Or maybe that’s just my justification for the last three movies I have seen in the theater lately: The Hangover, Bruno, and Up. In that order. That’s either a Hollywood mogul cackling in the distance or our window cleaners at work are being extra excitable today.

All of these films did not come into my life as an Event, Required Viewing, or Pre-meditated whatsoever. They came to me as a fancy, in the sort of movie-going experience of my youth. As in, you decide to see a movie first and then you figure out which films are playing in closest proximity. This does require a certain amount of disposable cash and you really can’t be too picky about it. Sometimes you are simply forced to pick the movie that disgusts you the least, as in my viewing of The Hangover. Other times, your movie partner has a strong preference and you? Well, not so much. Enter Bruno.

Little did I know that these loose, willy-nilly parameters which almost caused me to actually pay to view Terminator: Salvation (but thankfully did not, due to The Hangover being at a better time and generally better-reviewed), guided me to the Pixar masterpiece, Up.

Up is the kind of film that everybody on my Facebook update feed loves. My mom loves it. My friend’s mom loves it. My sister loves it. The guy who sat next to me in 11th grade English loves it. My old coworker who posts too many applications and constantly invites me to be part of his ninja war loves it. And you probably love it too. It’s a film that’s almost impossible not to love.

And it’s a movie that I knew almost nothing about upon entering the theater.

Oh sure, I knew that the film, directed by Peter Docter and co-directed by my new favorite voice artist, Bob Peterson, was loosely based on the plight of Lawnchair Larry (who also spawned films like Danny Deckchair and episodes of television shows like Spongebob Squarepants and Malcomn in the Middle), wherein some sap gets irritated with the world, is too cheap to buy a plane ticket, and summarily attaches himself (it’s always a dude) and an apparatus of some sort to a large amount of helium balloons. And then he goes, um, up.

I’ll be honest: The story itself never grabbed me. But then, all of a sudden, there was a sweet story of a little boy named Carl (voiced by Jeremy Leary as a child and Ed Asner as an old man) thirsting for adventure in the days of radios and newsreels and high-flying adventure planes. He found the love of his life as a child and they dreamt the same dream: getting to Paradise Falls, some distant exotic locale in South America. But then Life Happened, as it always does, and they never achieved their childhood fantasy. Poor Carl lost his Ellie and his dreams to the march of time. And so he is left, alone, to be the crotchety old man that exists in every neighborhood, in every town, in every city in America.

I’m sure you see where this is going.

Carl gets pulled out of his self-imposed exile by a young Wilderness Explorer named Russell (Jordan Nagai) who accidentally accompanies him on his adventure up into the sky. They meet a zany cast of characters and, blahblahblah, you know, yadda yadda. It’s a kids film. These things happen. And nobody except the bad guys get irreperably hurt.

Carl is a perfect centerpiece, a man who is at once rational and determined, with a sidekick that is sweet and charming (and echoes the adventuresome spirit of Carl’s late wife), a gigantic bird named Kevin, and Dug, a dog. The unlikely foursome are on a mission to bring Carl’s house to his intended locale on the top of Paradise Falls, which is sidetracked when they encounter Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer) who, like Carl, is blinded by his pursuit of a single-minded quest.

The beauty of Pixar films is how they take a concept that is innocuous and simple and transform it into something universal enough for everybody to understand - easy enough for children to grasp, complex enough to keep adults entertained, funny enough to keep a comedy snob like me laughing throughout, and just sad enough to touch you where it counts. (That’s your heart, dum-dum.)

And can we just talk about Dug for a second?

Voiced by co-director Bob Peterson, Dug is one of the best side characters to hit the screen in a very long time. Seeing as I did not know anything about the movie beforehand, I didn’t realize that this film contains a (as Russell would say) TALKING. DOG. It’s a DOG that TALKS. Except no, he doesn’t really talk in the Disney sense of the word. He has a device in his collar that takes his thoughts and translates them into audible words. It’s a concept that’s ridiculously uncomplicated and wonderful and works like a charm. He doesn’t crack wise or drop one liners at every opportunity. He’s just a dumb, sweet dog with dumb, sweet thoughts and he quickly became my favorite part of a movie that had a lot of really likeable elements.

Upon walking out of the theater, my thoughts echoed Dug’s simple purity, “I have just met you, Up, and I love you.”

Michelle Said is a writer living in New York City. She promises to stop writing only about movies with dogs in them some time in the near future. She tumbls here.