One Day at a Time

For a story that features talking dogs and a seriously old dude dragging his house across South America, Up plays it pretty straight with its narrative structure. The story may be coated with complex emotions like love and loneliness, but it’s told in a forthright, chronological style. We start out with Carl as a kid, move quickly through his charmed life with Ellie, and then spend most of the narrative deep in Carl’s jungle trek as it plays out from moment to moment.

Let’s Talk About That Montage

But let’s rewind for a second: Up’s most extraordinary narrative device is the dazzling four-minute montage that encapsulates Carl and Ellie’s marriage. “The marital sequence is one of the most moving animated episodes ever made,” says The New Yorker’s David Denby. “It’s like looking through a family photo album and knowing that every picture represents a crucial moment of experience.” Up’s montage tenderly tackles life-changing moments that we hardly ever see in an animated flick aimed at families. We’re talking about topics like infertility, aging, death, and grief. That’s some heavy stuff.

The point of Up’s montage isn’t just to make you hug your mom. As a narrative device, it serves to build an emotional foundation for the rest of the movie. Those four poetic minutes answer a slew of questions that are crucial for understanding Up’s narrative. How could Carl rig his home up with balloons and float away if he had kids and grandkids? How come Carl and Ellie never went to Paradise Falls? Why won’t Carl cash in on his house and buy a sailboat or something? Up is massive club sandwich of emotion. It has layers and without the foundation set by the montage, none of the story’s heartbreaks or triumphs would taste as delicious.