The 2009 animated movie Up follows the adventures of Carl Fredricksen as he strives to achieve his deceased wife’s and his life-long dream of living near Paradise Falls. However, the story’s primary focus is not only the adventure but the grief with which the main character is dealing. As the movie shows, Carl met the love of his life, Ellie, when he was a young boy. The beginning part of Up shows the progression of their relationship. They grow from friends into a romantic couple, get married, and want to have children; however, they find out that Ellie is infertile. Determined to live their life happily, Carl and Ellie decide to save enough money to move to Paradise Falls but have to spend this money on trivial problems in their adult lives. The couple grows old together, and as Carl finally saves up enough to surprise his wife with tickets to Paradise Falls, Ellie suddenly dies from an illness (Keogh, 2010).
The rest of Up shows Carl’s grieving process and his eventual acceptance of his wife’s death. It is unclear how many months or even years pass where Cark is completely isolated from social interaction. His behavior is indicative of a person who cannot let go and go through a healthy process of grieving. In particular, the largest part of the movie depicts Carl’s inability to let go, which leads to him prioritizing possessions that hold memories of Ellie over his and other people’s lives.
Analysis
In the scenes following Ellie’s death, Carl is completely different from the happy man who has been just shown to the audience. He is grumpy, unsociable, and rude – he avoids interactions with people, does not express positive emotions, and has a pessimistic outlook on life. It is clear that Carl feels sadness and anger over his wife’s passing. Possibly, Carl also felt numbness following Ellie’s death, as he quickly sequestered himself in his house.
As for cognition related to grief, Carl’s main symptom is preoccupation. While he does not express guilt about Ellie’s death, he believes that he is responsible for not achieving their childhood dream. Thus, he obsessively thinks about Ellie’s ideas and ruminates on what they could have accomplished in their younger years. His behavioral symptoms are defined by social withdrawal and aggressiveness toward people. A particular sign is that Carl carries and surrounds himself with objects that remind him of Ellie. He leaves Ellie’s favorite chair in its old place and does not allow anyone to sit in it. Carl also wears a handmade pin that Ellie gave him. As he decides to lift his house in the air and physically move to Paradise Hills, the whole place becomes a way for him to further distance himself from society and deny moving on with his life.
One of Carl’s limitations is that he does not appear to have any other relatives or friends left in his life. Another problem is his lack of desire to reach out for help or conversation. Nevertheless, Carl continues living and performing daily tasks – his routine of caring about his basic needs is not disturbed. He also does not show any stronger symptoms of depression, such as self-harm and suicidal ideation.
Following Worden’s (1996) description of grief mediators, it becomes apparent that Ellie played an essential role in Carl’s life. Ellie was his life-long partner and wife, and their relationship seemed very strong. Due to them being friends from early childhood, Carl was overly attached to Ellie, and they depended on each other for moral support. The death was natural but somewhat unexpected for Carl, as Ellie’s health declined quickly. Notably, the couple had another type of loss – as the couple could not have children, Ellie mourned the possibility of a family. Carl was supportive, and the two found solace in one another and their ultimate dream.
As for Carl’s personality variables, at the moment of Ellie’s passing, he was an older man who started engaging in avoidant emotional coping. The loss has affected Carl’s ego, as Carl sees his life as less important than completing Ellie’s dream of moving to Paradise Hills. As noted above, Carl did not have any emotional or social support immediately after Ellie’s death. The interaction with Russell, a young Wilderness Explorer, is possibly the longest event of socialization that Carl had for months. Finally, Carl’s concurrent stress is that newly built skyscrapers are occupying his house’s neighborhood, and the building company tries to take away Carl’s land as well. After a fight with the builders, Carl is ordered by the court to leave his home and move into a retirement home – this event motivates him to turn his house into a flying balloon and start his journey.
The movie is unclear about what culture Carl turns to when experiencing grief. The wedding and funeral scenes feature a church of ambiguous denomination, and Carl does not have any other religious items or rituals. Thus, one cannot describe any specific cultural considerations; Carl engages in a formal funeral and preserves mementos reminding him of Ellie. The lack of rituals and socialization may play a role in his inability to finish mourning.
Grief Conceptualization
Assessment
There are many ways to assess grief, and most of them are formulated as questionnaires. For example, Neimeyer (2018) lists the Texas Revised Inventory of Grief (TRIG) and the Inventory of Complicated Grief (ICG) as two of the most commonly used tools to measure one’s emotional, behavioral, and cognitive responses to their loss. The ICG contains such statements as, “I find myself thinking about the person who died” and “I can’t help feeling angry about his/her death” (Prigerson et al., 1995, p. 72). Looking at all items listed in this assessment, one may suggest that Carl is likely experiencing complicated grief. The Brief Grief Questionnaire also exposes Carl’s prolonged grief in that Carl has distanced himself from people and still has trouble talking about his wife’s death (Neimeyer, 2018). Nevertheless, it is challenging to assess Carl’s grief, as he does not speak openly about his feelings following Ellie’s death in the movie. Most of the evaluation points are drawn from his behavior before leaving for Paradise Hills and interactions with Russell when they are up in the air.
Theoretical Frameworks
Two theories can be utilized to understand Carl’s situation better. The first one is Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance (Kübler-Ross et al., 1972). As the scholar notes, people can skip some stages, and everyone experiences each step within their own timeframe. Looking at Carl’s social isolation, pessimistic outlook on life, and emotional responses to the world around him, one may conclude that Carl is at the stage of depression. While he does not experience anger about the death, he is angry at people who try to disturb his grieving process. At the same time, he cannot finish mourning and is stuck on a type of grief that brings him pain.
The second theory is Worden’s (1996) tasks of mourning that describe actions that people go through to complete grieving. The four tasks include accepting the loss, processing the pain, adjusting to a world without the deceased person, and starting a new life while finding an enduring connection with the departed (Worden, 1996). Carl seems to have accepted the death of his wife in that he does not deny her passing. He does not have delusions or distortions about Ellie, although he is seen talking to the house as if asking his wife’s opinion. Thus, Carl is between the first and second tasks since he does not adequately process his pain of grief. While he physically leaves the area where the family lived together for years, he does that not to find relief or new meaning of life, but to take away all mementos of Ellie and sequester himself in an area where he would not be bothered by society. Thus, Carl refuses to process his emotions and adjust to the world without Ellie.
Interventions
While Carl’s adventure eventually helps him to move on and leave his house in the movie, in real life, he would benefit from some psychological interventions to process his grief. For example, Johannsen et al. (2019) and Boelen and Smid (2017) suggest using complicated grief treatment, exposure therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy. Moreover, group therapy is found helpful for grieving adults, as they can share their feelings with people who went through similar experiences (Chow et al., 2019). Overall, all approaches would require Carl to seek and agree to help and open up about his feelings, which may be challenging for him.
References
Boelen, P. A., & Smid, G. E. (2017). Disturbed grief: Prolonged grief disorder and persistent complex bereavement disorder. BMJ, 357, j2016.
Chow, A. Y., Caserta, M., Lund, D., Suen, M. H., Xiu, D., Chan, I. K., & Chu, K. S. (2019). Dual-process bereavement group intervention (DPBGI) for widowed older adults. The Gerontologist, 59(5), 983-994.
Johannsen, M., Damholdt, M. F., Zachariae, R., Lundorff, M., Farver-Vestergaard, I., & O’Connor, M. (2019). Psychological interventions for grief in adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Journal of Affective Disorders, 253, 69-86.
Keogh, A. (2010).‘Up’ with grief: Film review. Open to Hope. Web.
Kübler-Ross, E., Wessler, S., & Avioli, L. V. (1972). On death and dying. Jama, 221(2), 174-179.
Neimeyer, R. A. (2018). Complicated grief: Assessment and intervention. Psikiyatride Güncel Yaklaşımlar-Current Approaches in Psychiatry, 10(3), 269-279.
Prigerson, H. G., Maciejewski, P. K., Reynolds III, C. F., Bierhals, A. J., Newsom, J. T., Fasiczka, A., Frank, E., Doman, J., & Miller, M. (1995). Inventory of Complicated Grief: A scale to measure maladaptive symptoms of loss. Psychiatry Research, 59(1-2), 65-79.
Worden, J. W. (1996). Tasks and mediators of mourning: A guideline for the mental health practitioner. In Session: Psychotherapy in Practice: Psychotherapy in Practice, 2(4), 73-80.