The Boring Stuff

Sometimes it’s the boring stuff I remember most.

So says Russell, a Wilderness Explorer (heck, I don’t know; think of him as a boy scout) as he talks to the other main character of Up, the recently widowed pensioner Carl Fredrickson.

I’d be warned about Up. I’d been told the first 15 minutes or so might make me cry. And so I should have been prepared.

The young Carl Fredrickson meets the young Ellie. They’re kids; full of adventure. One quiet and shy, the other daring and brazen. Put things like this together and you may get a couple. Sure enough they stick.

Years later, married, setting up home, they paint their names on the mail box. Ellie, the confident, daring, adventurous, brave one watches as shy Carl messes up. He puts his paint-covered hand on the mail box and accidentally leaves his print. Some people might not tolerate this kind of clumsiness. Ellie; she adds her print to his.

I’m crying and we may be all of four minutes in.

15 minutes later and I’m in pieces.

It’s like It’s a Wonderful Life condensed. We expect, demand, hope, that life is going to be one long adventure. And then it’s not. Except maybe it is and it’s being hiding. Maybe it’s in the boring stuff.

Up is full of the boring stuff and the adventure stuff. I don’t want to spoil any of it for you. The film’s first twenty minutes are delightful and moving. There’s enough jokes for the kids but, just as I was warned I’ll warn you, the grown ups might find themselves hiding their tears behind their 3-D glasses (though as The Beacon pointed out recently on Twitter all glasses are 3-D glasses).

Then the adventure starts, as 78 year old Carl and the young Wilderness Explorer Russell head off in search of Paradise Falls; the place Ellie and Carl dreamt of moving to all those decades ago. Carl’s house, held up by thousands of balloons, floats away and the two meet a rare flightless bird, “talking” dogs and a bad man who looks like a cross between Kirk Douglas and Bruce Forsyth. He’s a villain alright, but one it’s possible to partly sympathise with. He has his own story, and if people had had faith in him they way in which Ellie had faith in Carl, maybe he would have turned out differently.

Oddly, this film reminded me of Bad Santa. Now Bad Santa isn’t something you’d want to take the kids to. Indeed, it would be downright illegal. Bad Santa is one of the rudest films you’ll ever see. But, like Up, it shows an hilarious and moving relationship between a (seemingly) grumpy adult and a loner of a fat lad.

Here’s the bit from Bad Santa where the kid quizzes Bad Santa about his reindeers:

How can they drop me onto my own head?

Ok, I seem to have moved away from the Disney feel this post started off with. But do see Up. And Bad Santa. Me and the family watch Bad Santa every Christmas. Even my mum, who will often offer to make us all sandwiches.

And don’t get your Up’s confused. It’s the Disney/Pixar one you want to take the kids to.

suitable for kids

not suitable for kids

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time for a poll.