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An animated film and a journey. Carl is seventy-eight. His wife Ellie is dead, the house is stranded in the middle of a building site, and a court is sending him to a retirement home. He does not go. He ties thousands of balloons from his old trade to the chimney and the house lifts off. The first ten minutes are the real subject. Carl and Ellie meeting, marrying, being unable to have a child, the savings going to something else every time, and the two of them growing old, all told without a word. From there the film is an adventure. A boy turns up on the porch; Russell is there by accident and cannot get back. A plateau in South America, a talking dog, a large bird, and the explorer Carl admired as a child. What the narrative is interested in is not adventure but letting go: Carl spends the whole film dragging a house, and it takes him a long time to understand that the house is a promise rather than a person. The explorer line is the weakest and the most generic part; the narrative turns into a children's film there. The dogs' collars let them speak, and that carries most of the humour. It was the studio's first film prepared for three-dimensional presentation and it opened a major festival, the first animated film to do so. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and was also nominated for Best Picture, only the second time an animated film had been. Ed Asner, Jordan Nagai and Christopher Plummer are among the voices. The music is by Michael Giacchino and won an Academy Award. Pete Docter directed. Who it is for: anyone who wants a film to watch with children that will land harder on the adult. Who it is not for: anyone who cannot take the first ten minutes; that section is far heavier than the rest.