On a rare afternoon out sans baby, Sarah and I decided to watch Up.

Although as an animated movie it was billed as a kid's movie, in reality it seemed as much a show for someone more mature, because the central tenet of the movie is grief.

The first five minutes are a tenderly told love-story; and what follows is a endearing tale of enduring grief. Now a widower, Carl Fredericksen sets off to take the memory of his wife to the place she had dreamed of going her entire life. He takes his memories and his house to South America.

In some sense, it is a modern-day Pilgrim's Progress; instead of an overwhelming burden of sin on his back, Carl Fredericksen bears his house—borne on balloons, but no less heavy a weight. His house represents his grief and love and despondency and loss, and his journey is how he can lay his dead wife to rest in his own heart.

The journey to the waterfall at the end of the world is not just to fulfill a promise, but becomes a journey into the past, a catharsis, and an attempt to find life after loss.

Life seems to small and fragile and precious when compressed into a love-story of five minutes; but maybe that's all it will become in memory. Maybe when you look back on your life and your marriage, all you recall are vignettes that collapse into one short, poignant story.

This movie made me feel, and I confess, it made me shed a tear. It made me feel, and it made me think, and it entertained. What more do you want from a movie?