The real hero.
Like millions of others, I’ve
watched a few Disney films with the release of the new streaming service. I’m still tempted to pull up the original
Herbie movies, but I’m afraid they didn’t age very well, and I want to keep my
memories right where they are.
My daughter and I re-watched Up. If this movie remains in people’s hearts,
it’s because of all the talking doggies and their undeniable adorableness. I’m
guessing that most people tolerate all the old-timer stuff and wait until they
get to South America. I guess that’s
where all the fun is.
What clicked for me is the popular
meme out there that the first few minutes of Up are painfully sad. It’s a bit of a cliché at this point. “That’s
about as fun as the first fifteen minutes of Up.” In case you don’t
know, the first fifteen minutes are like this: a little boy and a little girl
meet. They grow up together and
eventually get married. They live a long
life together and have a dream to visit South America. The dream is pushed aside by life, and they
try to have children. There is a
miscarriage. They turn their efforts to
the South America trip they always dreamed of and save. Life gets in the way again and they have to
spend the savings on everyday bullshit. They never take the trip. They grow
old. The woman dies. The man is left
alone.
My question remains: Why is this sad?
You read that right. I don’t think it’s sad. At all.
Maybe a montage where a woman is crying after losing a baby is a bit
much for a Pixar movie, I’ll concede that, but the bulk of the story isn’t
sad. It’s real life. It’s as everyday as the rain, and as
dependable as a new iPhone on the market every year. What is the sad part? The fact that they have a dream for a big
trip and can’t go? I mean, I’ve never
gone anywhere, and I’m not a computer-animated image. I’m a real person. I bet there are millions of us who can’t grab
the dream we wanted since we were children.
Is it that they can’t have
children? There is adoption, and other
ways to create a family. It wasn’t the
end of the road if they didn’t want it to be.
Was it that she died at the end and left him alone? Well, people die. What a lot of them don’t get and what makes
this opening scene uplifting and not a downer is that they had AN ENTIRE LIFE
TOGETHER. Those two fell in love when they were under ten and managed to live
into their seventies or eighties. And,
they had a good time doing it, too.
Is this a millennial thing? I hate bringing that shit up because I’m a
big fan of that generation. But, there
are some observations I have about their oversensitivity and confusing pathos
and emotional manipulation. In other
words, they don’t like sad stuff.
The couple (I don’t even remember
their names) live in a sweet little house and manage to eke out a living from
the husband’s income as a balloon salesman.
Not sure how that worked, but hey, the economy has changed. That’s
something you should envy, not deride.
They spent all their time together, enjoyed each other’s company and had
a long successful relationship. They had
least had one friend because someone had to take all of those photos that ended
up in the photo album. Are you telling
me their story is a bummer because not everything worked out for them? They won the relationship lottery and I’m
supposed to be upset because one of them died in their twilight years?
The story is sweet because of what
they had, not what they didn’t. Maybe it’s
me. Maybe I’m an optimist when it comes
to things like this and I figured out the theme before the movie got
started. Take it from a guy who’s in a
very long relationship; one that began when I was nineteen. The marriage itself
was enough for them. They already
won. They could have opened their lives
to others if they couldn’t have kids and South America was just extra gravy on
a giant, fluffy pile of mashed potatoes.
I mean, a two-story restored
Victorian-era home, on a balloon salesman’s salary? Refinance! You’d have money for the South
America trip with cash to spare!
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