UP

I am a Pixar junkie. I don’t always love their films (I hated Cars, I really did) and I maintain that the comparative lack of female characters is annoying, but for the most part I love most things Pixar.

When the teasers and trailers for UP first came out, I was nonplussed. I thought the balloons were pretty but it wasn’t really doing it for me.

But it came out today, and it’s getting really good reviews, and the boy had today off, and sometimes Pixar films are surprising when compared to their advertising campaigns. So we went to see it this morning.

And within 15 minutes it made me cry.

It is, indeed, much deeper than just a story about an old man and a little kid floating off in a house carried by countless Technicolor balloons. It’s thoughtful and touching and genuinely funny. I don’t know if it surpassed Ratatouille as my favorite Pixar film, but it is definitely up there with the best of them. We saw it in 3D, and the effects are wonderfully subtle. Mostly it just adds depth to the gorgeous scenery.

And it made me cry within 15 minutes. It might have been 10, I’d have to watch again and time it.

Loved it. Maybe even moreso because I didn’t think I was going to. And Partly Cloudy, the short that runs before it, might just be my new favorite Pixar short.

Go. See it. Bring Kleenex.