Up, Up and Away
By
Gil Mansergh

Pixar’s new film “Up,” is the first animated movie to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, the first Pixar film presented in 3-D, the first major animated film to star a cranky old geezer (at least one who isn’t a dwarf), and the first that isn’t populated with cuddly animals, cars or robots to make into toys designed to lure kids (and their parents) into the local fast food franchise.

You’ve probably seen “Up’s” iconic image “a Victorian-style house flying high with the aid of thousands of brightly colored helium balloons. That lighter than air vehicle is the former clubhouse of a creative, artistic and talkative tomboy named Ellie, and a quiet, bespectacled boy named Carl. Ellie has big dreams, and when she discovers that they both like the dynamic South American explorer, Charles Muntz, she shares her plan to follow the now missing explorer to Venezuela and plant their clubhouse right beside the mile-high Paradise Falls.

A quick montage shows that Carl and Ellie fall in love, get married, become a balloon vendor and zoo keeper, buy and remodel their clubhouse into a home, discover they can’t have children, and live happily together into their old age. Then, in a scene reminiscent of Bambi’s suddenly absent mother, we see a crying Carl sitting alone in a quiet room with stained glass windows. As one youngster asked aloud to everyone else in the movie audience: “Where did Ellie go?”

But all of the above is just backstory. The movie really begins with the now 78-year-old Carl living alone and keeping his house exactly as Ellie kept it. The knick-knacks on the mantle have to remain just so, the two comfortable chairs must sit side-by-side in front of the window, and although their painted names and handprints have faded over time, the mailbox still functions as a mailbox, until-

The “until” is the huge high-rise building being constructed on three sides of the house. Like Ruth Krause’s classic children’s book “The Big World and the Little House” this once happy home has been encroached upon. But unlike that book, there are no flatbed trucks waiting to gently move Carl’s house to a quieter place in the country. The developers drool over the prospect of bulldozing this minor problem out of existence, and when Carl whaps a truck driver on the head with his metal cane after the man crushes Carl’s beloved mailbox, a judge forces him to move to a retirement home, and the developer’s wishes are about to come true.

Only, Carl has a few surprises left. For when the social workers arrive to escort Carl to his new place, he suddenly lets loose the thousands of balloons, unties the anchors which hold the house in place, and gently sails off into the clouds.

This sequence is magical in 3-D (and I strongly suggest you see the film this way if you can). The individual balloons are transparent jewels in the most joyous of Crayola colors. The reaction shots of the humans (and animals) as the house floats past are great fun, and the steering and piloting mechanisms Carl has constructed with ropes and strings (and the always important scissors) are both simple and clever enough to make us believe all this may just be possible.

But don’t worry that I’ve given away too much. So richly detailed is the story, that all of the above takes only ten minutes and you haven’t even met the 8-year-old stowaway on the floating house’s front porch, or dropped into South America, or met the rainbow-hued relative of Big Bird, or the talking dog who wants to be your best friend (as long as no squirrel happens to hop by) or-

But I don’t want to ruin the fun. This is one adventure you need to see for yourself “if only to remind you how delightful a trip to the movies can be.