Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner) has always dreamed of being an adventurer. As a young child, he meets a girl who has similar aspirations, and the two build a life together. But, in a beautiful and moving montage, we see that life gets in the way, and before he knows it, Carl is an old widower with only his memories to keep him going. A construction company want his house and he does not want to go into a home. What to do? How about tie thousands to helium balloons to the house and fly it to South America to the place you’d always dreamt of living? But things get complicated when it appears that a boy scout has ended up accidentally hitching a lift, and once they arrive, they discover a plot that threatens their lives.
Kids films are often just so good these days. Storylines are strong, characters are entertaining and they can be totally beautiful. Just ask anyone seeing the first ten minutes of Up; the story of the life of Carl and Ellie is just so sensitively portrayed. It is a shame that the brief time that Ellie is in the film is the only female character for the whole flick, and she’s a pretty ace character. (Is there a responsibility for films for kids to have good female characters? I say yes, and am so disappointed that I can think of very few kids films that have even one half-good female character)
The rest of the film is pretty good; quite ridiculous as only an animated film can be, but it is the first section that makes this great and sent many adults to the cinema to watch it.
Up won Oscars for Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score and Best Animated Feature Film of the Year and was nominated for Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Writing, original Screenplay (Bob Peterson, Pete Docter and Thomas McCarthy) and Best achievement in Sound Editing.
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That beginning montage is beautiful.
I agree. Worth watching the film for just the first fifteen minutes.