Up
2009 · Directed by Pete Docter
Original language: English
- animation
- comedy
- family
- adventure
The story
Carl Fredricksen spent his entire life dreaming of exploring the globe and experiencing life to its fullest. But at age 78, life seems to have passed him by, until a twist of fate (and a persistent 8-year old Wilderness Explorer named Russell) gives him a new lease on life.
What it’s like
Warm, saturated Pixar colour that shifts from the sun-faded pastels of a small-town house to the lush greens and blues of a South American plateau, with the bright gold of a balloon-lit sky. The camera is patient and often still, lingering on ordinary domestic rooms and quiet montages before the frame opens into sweeping aerial vistas of cliffs, waterfalls and drifting clouds. The sound is a gentle, wistful orchestral score that swells with bright brass for adventure and softens to a tender, piano-led melancholy in the early scenes, with lots of gentle comic beats and goofy animal sound effects. The vibe is bittersweet yet buoyant, a warm, low-stakes adventure with an undercurrent of grief. It suits a rainy Sunday, a family movie night, or a comfort rewatch. Its pacing is unhurried at the start and brisk once the journey takes off, and its emotional register moves from quiet sorrow toward hope. Its central arc follows a grieving older man slowly letting someone new into his life. Intensity is mild: there is peril from falls and a few cartoonish threats, a villainous chase, and one brief, sad depiction of a spouse's death, but no gore and nothing graphic. It is made for anyone wanting gentle, big-hearted animation for all ages.
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