Since Pixar has already racked up artistic credibility, top shelf awards and inevitable cash payout from Disney, many of us sit with baited breath, wondering how Pixar will next choose to spend their political capital. It’s not so much from interest in their work, but more to see what the biggest fish in a vast ocean does next. The Incredibles was a jab at superhero nostalgia way before it was the cool thing to do. Ratatouille had germ-phobic Americans cheering for a rat in a kitchen. And Wall-E won an Oscar despite having almost zero-human presence, encouraging kids to identify with a silent, trash-collecting robot.
Pixar's latest film Up raises the bar even further in its focus on Carl Fredricksen, an elderly, childless, embittered and recently widowered man. Carl declines an enormous cash payout for the land on which his house sits. Instead chooses to move his home (via helium balloons) to the jungles of South America, where he and his wife had once talked about visiting before debt and illness made it untenable.
What makes Up so remarkable is the ways director Peter Docter (Monsters Inc.) makes the film so inherently disagreeable to its key audience. The grimy color palate, the jungle doing everything in its power to eject white people, corrupted heroes and the attention paid to mundane, truthful details makes Up feel less like children's entertainment and more like an addition to the catalog of gritty seventies American cinema. There’s plenty to enjoy about Up without having any knowledge or concern of its predecessors. However, a film this carefully crafted will certainly ensure future generations of dutiful film lovers. As someone who spent years (and many relocations) clinging to battered VHS copies of Taxi Driver, Targets and Apocalypse Now, it's a relief to know these traditions will carry on after we're gone.
Carl has spent the majority of his life singularly defining himself as a husband. Once his wife passes away, he has nothing but resentment for everything and everyone in the world trying to encroach upon him with their petty notions of progress. An affable construction worker is played as a dope, a wealthy land developer appears to be based on Agent Smith from The Matrix and an indifferent judicial system responds to a terrible misunderstanding with a draconian invasion of privacy. The only moment of peace Carl achieves is as his house floats away from the racket of civilization and he drifts into peaceful slumber.
But the sweet escape is interrupted by Russell, a young neighborhood Eagle Scout trying to earn a merit badge by assisting the elderly. Russell, you see, has accidentally tagged along for the ride. The beginning of their relationship is particularly fascinating because Carl feels no immediate paternal responsibility towards the child. (In the dialogue-free expository montage of his marriage it's pointedly made clear that Mrs. Fredricksen couldn't have children. This impacts Carl only insofar that he is deeply empathetic to his wife's grief.) Carl briefly fantasizes about dropping Russell from the house as they float thousands of feet off the ground, but dismisses the idea with a joke.
Upon arriving in the jungle, Russell befriends a speechless, tropical bird (possibly modeled on the bold and breathtaking designs of British fashion designer Alexander McQueen). The creature is both child-like and, as we eventually learn, a mother to three young chicks. In an oddly exciting twist on gender expectations, Russell continues to call the bird "Kevin" even after learning of her gender. Kevin is being hunted by Charles Muntz, an explorer whose inability to demonstrate his discovery of this new bird has turned him into a grizzled, dead-ender. Muntz, once a childhood hero to Carl, is now living in a cave, obsessing over his increasingly infrequent Kevin sightings and perfecting the training techniques of his only companions. . .an army of servile talking dogs.
Even after learning of the doomed fate of the three young chicks (Kevin is a single mother), Carl can only be compelled to intervene on their behalf after receiving a belated message from his wife's deathbed that she wants him to pursue his own adventures, a call he responds to with a boldness unseen up to this point. Carl is transformed once he's made the decision to confront Muntz’, whose pursuit of a singular obsession has ruined him to the point of total isolation and insanity. At one point Carl even states, "Imagine, you finally get to meet your hero and he turns out to be a jerk."
It's a simple enough message, that our capacity to learn and grow is
only determined by our desire and will. It's also interesting that
Russell's long-absent father is specifically not permitted to become a
last minute hero (thank goodness for autonomy from Disney, eh, Pixar?).
While we see the emotional devastation this causes the boy, we see the
larger lesson of the film mirrored in the child's experience: it's okay
to let go of painful expectations and move on. It's an extremely
elegant pivot from the empty validation so many children's films
traffic in these days, dismissing hard work or innate talent in favor
of a protagonist simply believing they are special (paging: the
adorable but ultimately toxic Kung Fu Panda).
Unfortunately, the 3-D animation feels like an afterthought. At its
most detectable, the background images appear to almost be breathing in
the jungle scenes. It's creepy and effective enough but lacks dazzle
and falls short on the promise that 3-D will revolutionize the
theater-going experience. Coraline may have been glib and overly
morbid, but it embraced the form to its fullest extent. Nor is Pixar
doing much to alleviate its gender problem by
having all three female characters in the story be mute.
Up's selection to open the 2009 Cannes film festival was a rarity for
an American film and unheard of for an animation but perfectly
understood after seeing the film. Just don't bother shelling out the
extra bucks for the 3-D experience.
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