Breaking Down: Up

52:44 Our heroes are captured by the dogs and brought to their master's lair. The lair is inside a mountain with a split in it that looks suspiciously like an inverted version of Paradise Falls itself, starting thin at the top, tapering out as it goes down, and even flaring out a little suddenly at one point. But instead of brimming with life and activity, it is dark, rocky, and empty. It is barren.

54:00 The dog's master is revealed as Charles Muntz, which is inevitable given the economy of characters. Instead of the cliché of an old woman with her cats, we have an old man with his dogs. And what a bitter irony that the man who told the world that "Adventure is out there!" spends his days in a cave. His magnificent airship is covered by a ceiling. It is a caged bird.

55:05 Muntz invites them inside the Spirit of Adventure, and we see Carl happy for the first time since Ellie died.




55:31 Muntz shows off his skeletal trophies, adding "Most of the collection is housed in the world's top museums; New York, Munich, London. Of course, I kept the best for myself."

This is a very telling statement; Muntz is alone with his treasures, the best of them selfishly hoarded rather than shared with the world. And it's probably not a coincidence that this involves hanging onto things that have died. In this way, he's a cautionary tale for Carl (whose name is the German form of Charles). Charles Muntz is the kind of man Carl could become if he were to recede further from new people and experiences. Just as Carl locked himself up in his house with his memories of Ellie, Muntz has holed himself up in a cave with his relics. Both have willingly confined themselves in shrines to the past.




59:35 Muntz talks about hunting the bird, and we see index cards on a giant map with little notes about how it's evaded him. The dates on two of these cards (1938 and 1966) and some of the other text ("sighting 198") show us that he's been at this for quite a long time. Shortly after, Muntz reveals himself as paranoid and evil (of course), but not before spotting Kevin on top of the house. His eyes go wide with obsession.

1:02:53 After a thrilling chase, the dogs fall into the river, with one of them producing the famous Wilhelm Scream. Carl checks to see if everyone's okay...after checking the house. He's not there yet.




1:03:18 They aren't okay: Kevin has hurt her leg. Her right leg, which is the same one Carl broke when he was younger and now supports with his walker. To emphasize this connection we get two separate close-ups on Carl's face as he watches Russell bandage the wound. Kevin hears her babies call out, and calls back. Carl looks off into the distance, then at the house, and reluctantly agrees to help her get back to them. This is the first time he's placed any real importance on the needs of his new friends, and it comes immediately after being both reminded of Kevin's motherhood, and seeing that he now has something in common with her.

1:05:00 The group takes a small break. Russell says that the wilderness "isn't quite what I expected" and "it's not how they made it sound in my books." This mirrors Ellie's Adventure Book; her life wasn't what she expected, and it wasn't what she'd planned to put in her book, either.

Russell talks about how he and his dad used to get ice cream together (where they'd get chocolate and butter brickle, respectively) and sit on the curb outside the shop and play little car counting games. Then he summarizes the entire film: "It might sound boring, but I think the boring stuff is the stuff I remember the most."

Cut to a surprised look from Carl, who's struck by the thought. He's going to learn how perceptive this sentence is in just a few minutes. We'll also see it echoed during the credits, which feature images not of their incredible adventures, but of the two of them doing everyday things together. This, the thing we're watching, isn't the adventure.




1:06:31 Uh-oh. Muntz has been tracking them, and captures Kevin. Carl and the gang go to help him, but Muntz—familiar with obsession and knowing exactly where Carl's weak spot is—sets fire to the house. Carl runs to save it, leaving Muntz to take Kevin.

At this point, Carl has made a gesture to help Kevin get to her brood, but he isn't ready to throw away his entire past for her just yet. When push comes to shove, he still chooses to save his baggage rather than his friends. He sends Dug away with the worst thing you can say to a dog ("bad dog!") and tells Russell he can take or leave him, and then we get a lovely shot of him pulling his house in silhouette against a red sky, carrying a burden in more ways than one.




1:09:27 The house, running out of helium and having lost too many balloons from the fire, finally comes to rest next to the falls. Carl's done what he set out to do, though at a potentially great cost. Russell throws down his sash full of badges and walks off. Carl picks it up and walks inside, appropriately tossing it on Ellie's chair.

Once inside, Carl reassembles the living room before noticing Ellie's Adventure Book on the stand beside him. He opens it to place the drawing of the house atop Paradise Falls on one of the pages. He's kept his promise.

He leafs idly through the other pictures as he did before, and gets to the "Stuff I'm Going To Do" page again. And once again, he can't bear to look past it...but as he closes the book, the page slides down slightly and he sees that there's something there. He turns the pages and is stunned to see that Ellie has filled her book with him. In place of all the adventures she'd planned to commemorate, we see a catalogue of their lives together. Carl realizes that she was never disappointed with the direction their life took; that he was her adventure, and she had no regrets about it. This sequence is the film's emotional climax, and it's absolutely heart-wrenching.

At the end, Carl sees an inscription:

"Thanks for the adventure—now go have a new one! Love, Ellie."

Now we know why Ellie handed Carl the Adventure Book in the hospital: it wasn't to get him to keep his promise, but to show him that he already had. She knew him all too well; it is exactly what he needs to hear, exactly when he needs to hear it.

Carl looks longingly at his wife's chair, where Russell's sash is, and makes the "cross my heart" motion (and what does a sash do but cross over your heart?). He kept his promise to Ellie, and now it's time for him to keep his promise to Russell.




1:13:45 That might be difficult, because Russell's taken a few balloons and a leaf blower and is going after Muntz's blimp himself. Carl tries in vain to get the house off the ground, but he can't. It's too heavy.

This is where the metaphor of altitude and possibility takes on another layer of meaning. Carl can only get the house to fly again if he removes the dead weight inside of it. He must let go of all the furniture inside, all the pictures and memories, to lighten his heart and his house to the point at which both are capable of going to new places again.

This time, Carl lets his baggage go, but not before placing their chairs alongside the waterfall. He honors the dead, then dedicates himself to the living, understanding now that they aren't mutually exclusive.