Up opens with a marriage told almost entirely in silence, then spends the rest of its runtime proving that a house tied to a thousand balloons can still carry that much feeling along with it.
What is Up about?
Carl Fredricksen, a widower in his seventies, faces eviction from the house he shared with his late wife and a lifelong promise to see South America's Paradise Falls that the two of them never managed to keep. Rather than hand the house over, he seals every window, ties balloons to the chimney, and lifts the entire structure into the sky, only to discover mid-flight that a young wilderness scout named Russell has stowed away on the porch. The pair set the house down near the falls and set out on foot toward them, running into a flightless bird the boy adopts, a talking dog fitted with a voice-translating collar, and the explorer Carl idolized as a child, whose decades-long stay near the falls has curdled into something far less admirable than the boyhood stories suggested. What follows pushes the elderly widower back into physical adventure and unwanted company he initially resents, then gradually needs, as the promise he made to his wife turns out to have room in it for people he never expected to let in.
About the cast
Ed Asner voices Carl, the widower whose grief and stubbornness drive the story, opposite Jordan Nagai as Russell, the scout whose persistence pulls Carl back into the world. Christopher Plummer voices the explorer whose reputation Carl grew up admiring, Bob Peterson voices the talking dog fitted with the translating collar, and Delroy Lindo, Jerome Ranft, and John Ratzenberger fill out the supporting cast of dogs and fellow explorers.
Context & significance
Directed by Pete Docter and released in 2009, Up pairs a wordless opening built entirely around a marriage with an adventure-comedy built around balloons, a talking dog, and a fallen childhood hero, a combination that earned it a place among the more widely admired animated features of its decade. Its opening sequence in particular is frequently singled out on its own, separate from the adventure that follows it.
Watching Up on Ktime
Up streams on K-Time with a free account login, no separate purchase needed to start the film. It's available with a Persian dub for younger viewers and family watching together, alongside Persian subtitles for anyone who prefers the original English performances, both part of K-Time's Farsi-first library for Persian-speaking households.