Carl Fredericksen is 78. He lives in a patiently restored Victorian surrounded by encroaching development, like a vintage gramophone among iPods. Carl (the sandpapery voice of Ed Asner) is himself a Victorian among millennials, out of place, out of time, and alone. Carl and Ellie, his late wife, always had planned to travel and have kids. Life's script turned out otherwise, but no less sweet.
Without Ellie, the retired balloon vendor with the block head, bulb nose, and Chiclets teeth has become a sourball. Developers want to buy his house and send him off to Cranky Acres or whatever they call those geriatric warehouses that are God's waiting rooms.
Russell (voice of Jordan Nagai), a most persistent "Wilderness Explorer" who resembles an overblown balloon draped with a sash of badges, badgers Carl, wanting to escort him across the street as a means of marking another scouting achievement.
Feeling the weight of the world in his arthritic joints, Carl fastens a mountain of helium-filled inflatables to his roof and drifts toward the heavens. Carl's home airship gives new meaning to "armchair traveler." Oh, the places he goes!
The exhilarating film pays tribute to Buster Keaton's The Balloonatic by way of its slapstick, and to Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle by way of its watercolor palette and traveling domicile. Yet Pete Docter and Bob Peterson's film is consistently original and surprising. Up easily tops the Pixar heights reached by Toy Story 2, Monster's, Inc., Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles.
(No surprise there: Docter directed Monster House and Peterson wrote Finding Nemo. He deserves an Oscar - not just a nomination - for Up's nuanced script that plays the heartstrings and funny bones of those from 5 to 105.)
