Disney Pixar’s Up

Momicillin is pleased to introduce visiting writer: Momtrolfreak
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Oh, Pixar. Sigh. I wish I knew how to quit you…but it won’t happen soon. UP is a brilliantly done film. Not a movie, mind you: there’s a difference. Look: “Speed” is a movie. “The Godfather” is a film. Anything with Keanu Reeves? Movie. Anything with Meryl Streep? Film.  You with me?

There’s artistry in them thar (Hollywood) hills, and UP brings it, BIG time. The animation is TAH. DIE. FOR. It’s gorgeous to look at (note: we saw it only in 2D because my kid will not wear those damn glasses). The humor is expert: there are puns and inside jokes for parents, plus things my son laughed at on his own. I’ll skip the spoilers but also just say that when things are about to be too scary, something often happens to undercut it and make it palatable to the younguns. Best of all, my 3-year-old was rapt for the entire running time. Almost unheard of.

In keeping with the longstanding Disney tradition of RIPPING YOUR HEART OUT AND STOMPING ON IT (Bambi, Dumbo, Lion King, Nemo) UP includes the longest flashback montage everrrrrrrr of the entire life of a sweet married couple, which culminates in the funeral of the wife. It includes what I believe to be (I am not kidding here) the first ever miscarriage portrayed in a children’s film. We see the young couple dreaming of babies. Then decorating a nursery. Then in an exam room—wife in chair, face buried in hands— while the doctor speaks to them, shaking his head.  Sweet fancy bananas, I thought, please oh please don’t let my kid ask what is going on right now. (He didn’t.) When this one comes out on DVD I am certain I will Chapter Select right past this opening montage just like I do with the barracuda scene inFinding Nemo. (What, you didn’t know that Nemo starts with the first day of school?)

 Aside from these references to death and miscarriage (which will whiz right over the head of anyone younger than, I’d say, five or six) there are a few small-child concerns: a very frightening two-minute storm sequence (but easily gotten over; to wit: “Mommy, dat was scary. Why was dat scary?” [beat] “Can I haff some more popcorn?”); our heroes being cornered by a pack of growling dogs; and one death by falling from a great height (you don’t see the landing.)

The movie is packed with positive messages which are appropriate for all ages (the evils of urbanization, repercussions of absentee parenting, that people are more important than things). Lovefest aside, though, I do have one criticism. This is the second Pixar film (Wall-E being the first) in which at least one of the protagonists is morbidly obese and is ridiculed for it. I’m not talking chubby here. I’m talking MORBID. LEE. OBESE.

Russell, our lovably plump Wilderness Scout, haplessly participates in the adventure, while Pixar ridicules him mercilessly along the way. He huffs and puffs everywhere he goes. He can’t keep up with an octogenarian with a cane on a stroll through the jungle. He is used as ballast so an ENTIRE HOUSE doesn’t float away. But genes are not to blame for this: Russell scarfs chocolate bars like Tom Waits chain-smokes Lucky Strikes. With all the fat gags, one can hardly construe the story as a celebration of “heroes come in all shapes and sizes.” You’re either getting a bad role model for your children (“eating nothing but chocolate and being out of shape is okay”), or you’re mainstreaming ridicule (“go ahead, laugh at fat kids”). Neither of these messages is particularly warm and fuzzy. Nor is the fact that the old man in the story is fleeing the city to escape institutionalization that was COURT ORDERED after hephysically assaulted a construction worker with his cane. (“Hey kids! Did you break a window with your baseball? Just run away!”) 

None of this is enough to make you skip this otherwise brilliant film, but it is, in my book, worth one star deduction—and may be worth trying to finesse into a teachable moment during one of the eighty gajillion times you’ll be forced to endure the forthcoming DVD with your kids. Perhaps the Bonus Features could include a kiddie workout. Or a primer on healthy eating titled “Lard. Is Not. A Food Group.” 

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