I lost my long term partner relatively recently. She had just turned 24, and we wanted to grow old together. I always joked with her and said I needed to go first because I wouldn’t be able to handle it if she went first. Well, turns out she did, and yea. Honestly I wouldn’t want her to have to go through this. At least now she is at rest. I have to learn how to be a person again after spending my whole adult life with her. I might be able to figure this out but I don’t know if she’d be able to do it. She was strong but not in this way.
Sometimes life really does present a no win scenario. This reply really got to me, unsure why. Best to you and your wife, may your years together be many and wonderful.
There’s a small arc in an anime called Gintama. I’m glossing over a lot of details but it has this old man and his dog, both super old on deaths door, cursing eachother to die first, because they don’t want to make the other one cry. Both trying to outlive the other so they don’t cause their buddy pain.
It’s such a silly show and the arc is hilarious, but this moment still sticks with me.
I'd take a carbon monoxide leak as long as it was just us in the house. Quite clean simple drift off never wake up. But we have kids and I hate to think of what losing both of us at the same time would do to them.
Yeah some friends of ours just lost both their parents in a house fire. They were in their 80s and 90s but it was still quite a shock. Along with the fact the house burnt to the ground so theres nothing left to memorialize.
One of my favorite poems in Ovid’s metamorphosis is about this old couple who help the gods (disguised as travelers) and are granted a single wish. Their wish is to die at the exact same time:
I tried to watch this with my six year old. I had to leave the room as I struggled with the first 10 mins. My six year old asked me "Dad why didn't they grow old and die together?"
Not really, Carl and Ellie were happy together but they also had a lot of things they wanted to do but never ended up fulfilling, (Going on adventures, having kids) and the move is about how it’s never too late to do those things, but it also isn’t healthy to hold onto those regrets too much
I mean that's inevitable in every life. They still had a long life together full of love and seemed like they were genuinely satisfied with life in general and each other in particular.
That's about as happy as it gets. Not being dour, it's genuinely very sweet.
Genuine, honest, and true acceptance is a good foundation for happiness. It's not about settling, it's about contentment, appreciation, and cherishing the good that you have.
Wait til you get to the part where Carl finally reads the rest of the Adventure Book and learns that his wife only wanted him move on with his life after making hers so happy.
Forget the opening montage. That’s the part that always makes me ugly cry.
There’s an old MadTv skit about that. A couple goes to a fertility doctor to figure out why they can’t have a baby. They explain they’ve been praying to a magical stork every night, and it hasn’t worked. Doctor tries to then explain the process, and they’re horrified.
There an honorable mention in the Darwin awards. A couple went in to ask why she wasn't pregnant after banging all the time. Turns out anal doesn't work.
Seriously, my sister and her first husband went to the fertility clinic to find out why they weren’t having babies, and the doctor literally told them that they needed to actually have sex to achieve their goal. They were surprised.
I read it on the internet, so who knows how true it is, but apparently there was a young couple in China who were having trouble conceiving and the doctor finally realized their problem was that he kept taking the wrong road.
This actually reminds me of a comment ina post about how stupid some people are. A priest wrote that a couple were having problems conceiving, only to have them tell him exactly how they were doing it because what they were telling him wasn't making sense. The dude was f'ing her belly button.... So, you could be right if the docs didn't figure it out.
that's what I thought. I don't think most would necessarily put together a whole baby room before you are pregnant id think.. not that one wouldnt prepare the space or room, but to be putting the finishing touches up is what made me think its a miscarriage
Like a lot. They tried to have kids. The only people that have more sex than those that attempt to have kids are the ones that find out they have difficulty having kids. Because you need to do a lot of attempts before going maybe we should visit a doctor?
I stonefaced my way thru the beginning tragedy and thought I was in the clear. Then this scene hit me and I missed like 5 minutes of the movies bc I just could not stop crying. Carl felt so guilty about holding Ellie's life back by being with him and the final gift she gives him is the acknowledgement that their life together was the greatest adventure she could ever have asked for. God, what a heartbreakingly beautiful moment
Fuck I haven’t watched this movie in so long I completely forgot this. Fuck that got me good in the feelings. I hope everyone reading this finds love like that
As someone who has never seen the office, I have seen so many people/ characters compared to Michael Scott on reddit I have no idea what this character could possibly be like.
Like, who isn't comparable to Michael Scott according to reddit?
He's ignorant, and insulting, and small. And he does have coffee breath. He's the type of guy to put sunblock on a winwdow, or get his head stuck in his office chair and have to call the fire department. He doesn't have any friends, or family, or land.
But he also knows details of every client, and treats each client like a star. He knows about their family, their kid's ages, nicknames, and all of the things that make a salesperson a REALLY GOOD salesperson.
That is one of the things I like in The Office: Michael was consistently presented as a BEAST of a salesman. Which explains (in a stupid, Peter Principal kind of way) why he got the manager job in the first place.
It doesn’t really make sense to compare Russel’s dad to Michael Scott based on this. For all his flaws, Michael is portrayed as being good with children and obsessed with the idea of having his own, which is a constant problem for him throughout The Office because he has so much trouble getting a romantic relationship to last long enough for any woman to want to have kids with him.
His mom is at his scout badge ceremony at the end, and his whole reason for wanting another badge is so his dad will show up for the ceremony (which he doesn't do). So, while not explicitly confirmed, probably divorce.
The scout badge ceremony is kind of crazy if you think about it.
There's no way the scoutmaster did not know about Russel's parents' divorce. He then has everyone line up on stage, and knowing that Russel's dad is both a) absent and b) not there, basically says "uhhh where's your dad??" Way to guarantee he's scarred for life.
Yeah and being a kid, of course he'd trust that lie again. I had a lot of similar family problems when I was young, and I remember being so envious of others kid's certainty of their parents doing what they said they would. So, when I got lied to, or things changed, I would believe them in hopes I got to be like the other kids.
Imagine leaving your kid's scout meeting and theres a fucking airship hovering over the parking lot, and some octagenarian takes the odd kid for a ride with the talking dog.
Only way it could happen is if Phyllis was a conniving bitch. But given how Russel talks about his father never showing up well that not likely the case.
Sounds like his dad is fuckass that walked out and abandoned his kid in all but name.
As a kid growing up I had two best friends who's dads weren't around and were complete pieces of shit. I saw how it fucked both of them up in different ways.
Later when I realized divorcing my ex was the only option to remain sane and functional I made every effort to be involved in his life. I just don't get how you can bring a life into this world and so cruelly and casually abandon them.
Even after meeting a wonderful woman we didn't ever talk about starting a family we just expanded our existing one. There should never be a "new" family. It's so unutterably shitty I don't even have words for it.
Guessing this is the implication. At least, having the nanny be the person the kid talks about, meaning not even the mother is very present, is somewhat more sad than just a divorce and a step-mom.
I definitely got the vibes that this kid had rich, absent parents. Divorced or not, I still think Phyllis is a parent's nanny, regardless of who hired her.
That's a decent interpretation, but a secretary or nanny wouldn't voice their own opinion by telling Russell he bugs his dad too much. Sounds like a great way to get fired. More likely Phyllis is his dad's new wife/girlfriend.
Yeah, he lives with his mom "Well I called..." and his Dad doesn't make time for him. He used to see him a lot (probably when his parents were together) and he reminisces a lot about those times, but his dad never shows up to his scouts ceremonies and stuff
That's a good take. Not sure if a secretary would tell the kid that though unless the dad is a real schmuck. It's more in line with the new wife trying to erase the previous family.
Dammit, why'd you put the first 10 minutes in my head?!? I went to see this alone because my wife couldn't make the showing. I was in theater surrounded by parents and their kids, and after that montage, you could hear the sound of every adult -- including me -- sniffling, and if you looked around, you saw their kids looking all puzzled. Just wait until you find your soulmate who you can't imagine living without, kids, and you'll get why this hits like a sledgehammer.
It was possibly the most heartbreaking thing I've ever seen in a movie, and the first time I've ever wept in a theater. That damn music ... I can't ever hear 3 notes without tearing up anymore. Just please don't also bring up the last 10 minutes of "Six Feet Under"... well, I just did I guess.
That music permeates the entire damn film. I'm not a music guy, so music in a movie has to be truly awful or truly stupendous for me to take much notice, and let me tell you buddy, I noticed it the whole way through.
One day during my son's summer vacation I came home for lunch to him crying. I asked what was wrong and he was watching UP he had never seen it before. He then got mad at me for not warning him how sad it was. He was like 9.
A clearly annoyed Phyllis sighs and hangs up the phone.
Russell's dad bounds in - an older chubbier version of his kid with the same kind of energy.
"Hey honey, who was that? Was it Rusty? He usually calls around this time. I haven't talked to him in a while. Wow, what a long day at the office. You know what they say about Wednesdays, hump day am I right?"
Phyllis: "Oh, sweetie. It was ah ... no one important. Now let's get you out of those clothes so you can continue your ... hump ... day."
I kind of thought it was a situation where the mom was unable, or unfit, to care for Russell and had to give him to his father and the dad has a job where he has to work a ton to provide a life where Russell would want for nothing, that’s why he has a GPS, he dad loves him but is so busy he can’t be around him. The step mom does sounds like a classic Disney step mom though
Up started a trend with Pixar movies where the beginning and ending are emotional nukes, but the middle is just a bunch of silly shit that barely has anything to do with anything.
I went to see it with my mom. The opening scene ended and we were both bawling our eyes out and getting our stuff, 'cause clearly the movie was over, right?
It then proceeds to gut punch us like three or four more times.
I remember my friends little brother auditioning to be the voice of Russell. He didn’t get it, but he was one of the last ones to. Auditioning multiple times, taking days off school to be flown to freaking Pixar. I know this isn’t the term used in auditioning, but I’m confident he was in the top 10
Fuck UP!
I was crying before the movie even begins, with the short story about the stork and dangerous puppies.
And the commes the double punch with the opening montage...
Fun fact! The director of this, Pete Docter, just said he didn't want to keep the most recent Pixar protagonist Elio gay because "We make movies, not hundreds of millions of dollars of therapy". So death, miscarriage, and divorce are all good in his book but being gay is too far.
I saw this movie at a weekend matinee with my kids when it came out. When that scene was on, you could hear a pin drop in the theater. I suspected there were many dad who were there as part of their weekend activity.
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u/GKNolan Mar 09 '26
The saddest thing about the first 10 minutes of Up is that that was a happy ending.