Pete Docter’s Up is a funny, moving family adventure whose near-silent portrait of married life is hard to match. The chases cannot quite sustain that early promise, but we care about Carl and Russell throughout.
Up is a fine family adventure, with an opening account of married life so affecting that the later excitement sometimes feels like a less interesting use of our time. Director Pete Docter takes an elderly widower seriously as a hero, allowing his disappointments to matter before asking us to enjoy his balloon-powered expedition. That gives Carl Fredricksen a reason to be gruff beyond the usual comic usefulness of a cross old man. We care what happens to him before the adventure gets going.
The near-silent passage tracing Carl’s marriage deserves the attention it gets. Editors Katherine Ringgold and Kevin Nolting compress a shared lifetime without reducing it to a list of occasions, leaving room for the disappointment of dreams deferred. We were moved more than we expected by how much of that life is spent hoping for things that do not happen. Michael Giacchino’s score helps us follow the changing mood without dialogue to explain it, and the sequence trusts us to recognise the affection that persists through disappointment.
The film then has to find something for Carl to do, and pairing him with a boy scout is a sensible start. Ed Asner gives Carl a gruffness that sounds habitual rather than performed for a laugh, while Jordan Nagai’s Russell makes the unlikely friendship easy to believe. Their scenes together are funny without making either character seem foolish for needing company. Docter and fellow screenwriter Bob Peterson are at their most persuasive when they let that companionship develop without insisting on a lesson.
Ricky Nierva’s production design gives the balloon-powered adventure a cheerful appearance that Carl himself does little to encourage. Patrick Lin and Jean-Claude Kalache, credited with cinematography, favour vivid colour and a painterly finish over a sombre look to match the subject of loss. That is the right decision for a comedy, and it makes the opening’s sadness more surprising. Carl remains a convincing old man in surroundings made for a family adventure.
The adventure is less consistent. The chases have comic invention, but they do not always give Carl and Russell’s friendship enough to do; we occasionally found ourselves waiting for the next quiet exchange. Ringgold and Nolting keep the action moving, though their brisk pace cannot entirely disguise passages in which the story wanders. Docter and Peterson could have trusted a little more of the film to its characters, since being in their company is already a pleasure.
The choice of an elderly hero gives Up an unusual place in family animation. Carl has had time to try things and be disappointed, and a family film that takes that seriously is worth an evening. The U certificate is fair, but the near-silent account of married life may upset adults more than children. Give it the full 96 minutes, with a little patience for the busier stretches.
