Thursday, October 29, 2009

Up

Went to see Up last night with Alice. Pixar has done it again, by taking risks and crafting original and wonderful stories, there's yet another masterpiece to the company's name.

Up is an extremely moving film, perhaps surprisingly so- it actually made Alice weep reasonably profusely, and I was certainly very teary. After all, it is the tale of an old man who has lost his wife searching for meaning, and regretting not having taken more chances in the past. The main character has not had a bad life by any means, but always meant to travel with his wife, and never did. Now she's lost, he contrives a Dahlesque plan to fill his house with baloons and travel to South America.

The story feels a little like a Dahl story, with an effectively parentless child joining Carl on his journey. Once they get to South America adventure begins, and while the first half of the film is a well observed, touching, and indeed amusing story about a man with little left trying to recapture it, the second half becomes a somewhat more standard Pixar adventure, which is no bad thing- its extremely funny, with the dogs providing a lot of the comedy.

Are there any animators as brave and inventive as Pixar? Their back catalogue really is astonishing, I truly am somewhat in awe of this company. This film is definitely worth watching.

If you can, however, try to avoid watching this with, for example, 3 11 year old boys with the emotional complexity of, well, 11 year old boys. I really need to get better about letting people like that take me out of the movie. Oh well.

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