10 Great Movies - Up (2009)

I was hiding under your porch because I love you.

Pixar really outdid themselves with Up. It’s a bizarre concept, that’s for sure! An old man (Carl, played perfectly by Ed Asner) attaches a bunch of balloons to his house to transport it to South America to fulfill a promise to his late wife. Accompanying him on this journey is an enthusiastic but clumsy Wilderness Explorer (Boy Scout) and a dog named Dug who can and does talk. It seems nutty, and it is. But it’s also charming, hilarious, heartbreaking, wonderful, and heartwarming all at the same time.

The first segment of the movie is a short flashback which covers a lot of time: the majority of Carl’s life up until the events of the movie, specifically his relationship with Ellie, his late wife. The first portion of the flashback covers the time when they first met when they were very young; they both shared an enthusiasm for adventure. The second portion is an accelerated depiction of their courtship and married life, which is presented without dialogue. At the end of this segment, I was weeping. The movie had barely even started! I was in tears again by the end. In between, I had laughed a lot, smiled a lot, gasped a lot, among many other things.

We love to feel emotion! That is what makes Up (and most other Pixar films [not Cars]) so good. They evoke so many different emotions in us all because of their ability to relate the most outlandish characters to anyone. Anyone can see a little bit of themselves in a Pixar film, and Up is certainly no exception.