October 20, 2009
Up & Down
Happy endings are one thing, but Pixar really do seem to be making a speciality of absolutely fucking miserable beginnings.
Of course, that's a children's story pattern dating back roughly forever -- the poor orphan, the wicked stepmother, the usurped kingdom -- you have to start out bad in order to have somewhere to go. And young readers naturally empathise with an unjustly punished hero, as they constantly find themselves thwarted by circumstance, making the outrageous discovery that the world isn't just about them after all.
Even so, the slant in Up and Wall-E and even The Incredibles seems much more contemporary and, really, grown-up, than -- say -- Harry Potter's incarceration with the Dursleys. This latest isn't quite as bleak as its predecessor's vision of the whole world as a mountain of trash, but it's still pretty heartbreaking. And while there's a fair bit of silliness and a smidgen of schmaltz later on, the eventual payoff from the opening is just lovely.
Posted by matt at October 20, 2009 8:15 AM