review on Up

Plot-

This was quite an emotional film, it begins by showing us the lives of Ellie and Carl who fall in love. For 70 years they have a dream to go and visit a lost land in South America. 70 years later they still have not been to there desired place and Ellie the love of Carl's life dies. We see an empty chair as Carl sits alone in his quiet house of 70 years. As he walks outside to check his mailbox we see a contrast in his house and the surroundings as his little house sits in the middle of a huge building site. A young boy a wilderness explorer knocks on Carl's house and asks of his help to be able to assist the elderly, Carl refuses closing the door. Being forced out of his home by the builders and being put into an old people's home Carl makes an attempt to escape by attaching millions of balloons to his house and floating away. Carl is now resting on his arm chair still with his beloved wife's chair beside his as he sits in piece and quiet... until he hears a knock on the door, onfused by this he goes to check the noise out and discovers that he isn't alone after all. Russel the little boy was hiding on his porch and after shutting the door on him again Carl begins to feel sorry for Russel and decides to let him in. Through a storm the house becomes a bit of a wreck but Carl tries to stop the things braking to the floor as they fall so he catches the precious objects such as Ellie's photograph. Finally the house comes to a stop as they discover a dark and sinister world, not being able to move any more Carl and Russel begin to pull the house as it floats above them. As they walk they soon discover a tlking dog that is actually the pet of a hunter looking for a certain rare bird. Following Carl and the little boy the dog is loved by Russel but not so much by Carl. They soon come across the rare bird that the hunter is looking for and Russle name's the bird Kevin. Carl soon becomes aware that they are walking along the territories of the lost land of South America as he looks at a picture that Ellie
made of their house on the top of a waterfall. Looking at the waterfall in the far distance Carl and the others make their way for the waterfall. But the hunter has his other dogs on watch for the dog and discover that he has found the bird. Carl and Russle come into contact with the hunter and Carl and Ellie's idol but as he realizes that the hunter is after the bird he becomes defensive and tries to get away, but the hunter has his dogs on the case and soon captures Kevin. Once Carl reaches the waterfall he looks at a book that Ellie left to Carl about the things that she had done, thinking that Ellie had left the pages blank and that she had not done anything with her life he soon finds that she has as she has placed photographs of her life showing that she has been happy. He then decides that he has to help kevin and to make life easier he gets rid of his belongings making the house lighter and makes his way to help Kevin. They manage to rescue Kevin letting her go back to her babies. The film ends by showing Russel being giving his award for helping the aged and Carl is the person who gives it to him. We then see various photo's of Carl and Russel as they share their lives together and have fun times.

What keeps the audience's attention?

The audience are kept engaged by the emotional journey of Carl a 70 year old man. We see his life change from good to bad to worse as he loses his wife and is being forced out of his own home where he has spent his life with his beloved wife. From the beginning of the film the animation is emotional and we want to see Carl have a positive side to his life.

Reaction from an audience-

I felt emotion whilst watching this animation, not only sorrow for the old guy for loosing his wife but aslo the fact that this does happen in day to day life; the fact that we loose the people we love and hope that they get the best out of life. In this case Ellie, Carls wife dies but at first we think that she has not lived her life to her expectations and we feel guilt, but then at the end as he reveals the rest of the pages in Ellie's diary we find that she has enjoyed her life with Carl although she never had the chance to experience her dream. We then feel happier at this and then as we are shown the photographs showing Carls life as he spends it with the young boy, we then feel happy for Carl and Russel. Parts of this animation are funny as we see an eldery man trying to relate to a young boy, of course there is a contrast but at the end we see that they get along well and become more of a family rather than friends.