Life according to Disney

Whenever I feel like unintentionally torturing my fabulous friend J, I mention either a) Dumbo's mother imprisoned in the mad elephant tent or b) "Don't turn around, Bambi. Don't turn around."

In the week it takes her to pull herself together, I can go through her purse and steal all its contents.

So many of our impressionable young minds got their first jolt of life's cold reality in a movie theatre where, in between sticking Milk Duds up our noses, we had our first real experience of death and disappointment.

Enter UP. 

Spoiler Alert. 

If you haven't seen it yet, you may not want to hear some of the finer points.

Suffice to say that it's brilliantly and heartbreakingly done in a "It's a Wonderful Life" kind of way.  

In between cute dog and squirrel jokes, and some of the best art direction I've seen in a long time, it's full of social commentary, about the impact a single life can have, of paving paradise and putting up a parking lot, about how our aging population is often imprisoned in old age homes while they still have plenty to contribute to society, and how two parent families are less the norm and more the exception. 

I marvelled at the perceived marketing risks Disney took here --  in a brief but extremely moving scene showing a couple's heartbreak after a miscarriage and in showing a husband's grief after his lifelong  companion is gone,. It deftly broke down barriers of age (Ed Asner voices "Carl") and race (wilderness explorer Russell is Asian...but his ethnicity rightly doesn't figure into the story line at all).

While this sounds serious, the movie decidedly is not. That's why it's so brilliant. It's funny, uplifting, quirky and ridiculous. 

If you're done, I guarantee it: you'll love UP.