Pixar’s Take on Grieving

The Passage of Time Portrayed in Neckties

I enjoy listening to an NPR podcast called Pop Culture Happy Hour (PCHH).  It has been on the air since July, 2010 and has posted over a thousand episodes in that time. There are various hosts and guest panelists on the show. They review, recommend, and give commentary on movies, TV, music, books, and video games.

As examples, in recent weeks they have listed these episodes:

• The Bear
• Our Favorite “Survivor” Contestant
• Stephen Colbert and Late Night
• Olivia Rodrigo, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love

The episode that caught my attention is: Best Pixar Movies, Ranked. Evidently, 31 feature films have been released by Pixar between November 22, 1995 and June 19, 2026. The first was Toy Story and the most recent is Toy Story 5. Listeners were asked to write in with their top three Pixar movies and these results were given:

• In a tie for 5^th place: Toy Story (1995) and Coco (2017)
• 4^th place: Up (2009)
• 3^rd place: Finding Nemo (2003)
• 2^nd place: Wall-E (2008)
• 1^st place: Inside Out (2015)

I was intrigued by that 4^th place winner in two ways. First, the PCHH hosts said it had “one of the greatest opening sequences of a movie, especially an animated movie, of all time.” And then much was made of the fact that the story is about a crotchety old man who is harboring a lot of grief due to the recent loss of his wife.

Kind of a strange topic for an animated feature for kids, right? Clearly, I needed to know more. Renting the movie, here is what I learned:

About that opening sequence:

In about ten minutes or so, we are shown the entire life history of Carl Fredrickson and his wife, Ellie. They meet as children. Both want to grow up to become adventurers. In the earliest scenes, there is dialog between them. We even go to the movies with them where we see – and hear – a newsreel about an adventurer who is going off to Paradise Falls in his aircraft, the Spirit of Adventure, because “adventure is out there.”

Shortly after the newsreel, all dialog ends, and the emotional gut punch begins.

Now we watch Carl and Ellie, all grown up and entering their married life. Images of them through the years play out against a beautiful musical score, like a this-is-your-life video at a retirement party.

The passage of time is portrayed in neckties. As Ellie helps Carl tie one tie after another they go from youth to old age. It is so mundane…and so intimate. So insignificant…and so meaningful. It is indeed beautiful, moving, and haunting.

The same is true of such “mundane” scenes as painting the mailbox together, reading side by side, and their hands moving together to wash a window, he inside and she out.

In this wordless segment, we also see a collection jar as they save to go to South America to see Paradise Falls. And we see that money get used instead for life’s little emergencies. A flat tire. A broken leg. A tree falling on the house. Thus, time goes by without a trip. They age. Ellie gets sick and dies. Her childhood album – My Adventure Book – never gets filled with South American images. And Carl feels regret.

*****

About the plot:

More than just regret, Carl feels grief. He is despondent. Wanting to run away from it all, he puts his past career to good use. He had sold helium balloons from a cart. So now he inflates gazillions of balloons and defying physics – but answering to the sometime need in all of us to leave our problems behind – he makes his house take flight.

There’s only one problem. He has a stowaway. Russell is a pesky little boy in the neighborhood who is trying to befriend curmudgeonly Carl so he can earn a scouting merit badge for “Assisting the Elderly.”

They have an adventure together. And it doesn’t really matter what that adventure is. The point is their togetherness.

*****

The takeaway:

In the end, Carl learns what Ellie knew all along. Through their whole life they had been on their Great Adventure, and it had nothing to do with seeing Paradise Falls. It had everything to do with all those not-so-small things in life like tying all those neckties and washing windows together.

Clearly, this is something we can all find in life, though our small things may be different. Just as the small things Carl and Russell do together show us – they eat ice cream while sitting on the curb and counting how many red cars go by.

*****

I’m not alone in loving this movie:

According to Oscars.org, Up was nominated for five awards in 2010. One of the awards was for Best Animated Feature Film as one might expect. But another was for Best Picture of the year, making Up the second animated film in history to receive such a nomination, following Beauty and the Beast in 1991. Happily, Up won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film. It also won for Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Picture.

IMDB talks about ALL film awards for 2010 and says Up had a total of 88 nominations and 81 wins.

*****

That said, here’s what I suggest:

• Watch this charming movie!
• Go look through a photo album and revisit your grand adventure in life. Especially those “adventures” showing you with friends and loved ones.
• Give yourself the “Ellie Badge” for your participation in the amazing adventure of your own life.
• And remember: There is adventure out there – large and small – and it’s yours to find.

*****

I think the story of a curmudgeonly older person finding a new lease on life after meeting up with some kid (often pesky) is its own genre. Here are some novels with the same theme. Click the link to see my reviews.

• Mad Mable
• The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
• The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett

And on the topic of books, one of the main hosts of Pop Culture Happy Hour is Linda Holmes. She has three novels in print. I have read and reviewed the first two:

• Evvie Drake Starts Over
• Flying Solo

*****

If you like my writing, I hope you will check out my new book, Chai on Life. It contains 36 slice-of-life stories ranging in topics from belly fat to Billy Joel. It is available wherever books are sold and on Amazon. There is even a companion journal for you to write the stories of your life.

Chai on Life is available in 3 formats: Hard Back, Kindle, and AudioBook.