Screenpopp

Hello, All. This is my first review here at ScreenPopp, and I certainly picked a doozy to review. Let me just establish quickly that I review based on a lifetime love of films and only one film class in college decades ago. I’m a movie lover, not a professional. And with Pixar’s newest release, Inside Out, there is a lot to love.

Inside Out is the story of Riley, a joyful pre-teen whose core personality is based on family, friendship, hockey, and a few others. She is literally full of joy–the film explores the primary emotions each of us experience in the forms of Joy, Fear, Disgust, Anger, and Sadness. Each character plays an important part in making up who Riley is, with Joy supervising and dominating the group. We get a glimpse at how Riley’s life has progressed, building her core memories and personality as she and her parents live an idyllic existence in Minnesota. Everything runs smoothly until the family picks up and moves to San Francisco for the father’s job, where Riley finds it difficult to maintain her sunny disposition, and Joy finds an increasing presence of Sadness as a threat to all she has built for her beloved Riley.

Pixar creates here an entire inner world not only for Riley’s character, but gives us glimpses into the inner processes of other characters as well, to good and funny effect. Each character has his or her own cast of emotions asserting themselves at various times, even down to dogs and cats. How our brains work is fascinating in the Pixar world, and credit is given at the end to real life experts for their help in providing realistic scientific insight into the process. With areas dedicated to long term memory, abstract thinking, daydream production, and Imagination Land, as well as the ever present Train of Thought, we are given a tour through ourselves and a vision of how we form from birth into the people we become. There are wonderfully subtle touches, like realizing which emotions seem to be in control in both the mother and the father in the film, at least at the point where we discover them after the move. And great laughs come when those inner voices come in conflict with those of another person. There are many clever moments that provide laughs drawn from realistic situations, a Pixar strength.

The greatest Pixar strength though is telling a story with heart. We meet Joy (played with sincere pep and love by Amy Poehler) right when Riley opens her eyes and experiences her first emotion. Joy’s determination to help Riley love life and stay happy is like that of any parents who want their little ones’ lives to remain complication free and innocent. While Joy works well with Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black, who steals his scenes), and Disgust (Mindy Kaling), it is because she understands their functions in keeping Riley safe from harm. She does not understand, however, the role of Sadness (played beautifully by Phyllis Smith), and she sees her as a threat to the happiness she has instilled in Riley’s life. As Riley must face a new school, the loss of her old friends, and uncertainty about her family’s future, Sadness begins to assert herself more to Joy’s dismay. An unfortunate accident finds them both expelled from the control room and into long term memory, and they watch as a newly joyless Riley must navigate an ever increasingly scary, and ultimately disappointing, world. It’s a race to the finish for them both to get back to the control room for Joy to set things right, and to learn a lesson about the role Sadness plays in all our lives.

Inside Out is a film about one little girl and how she loses the spark of childhood as she leaves it behind when confronted with life’s trials, but it’s also about the journey we all face as we do the same. It works on one level as a fun story that will engage the youngsters, but also as an empathetic view of what parents must go through as they watch their little ones replace innocence with worldly experience and awareness. Viewers who have watched it happen in their own families, or who are soon to see it occur, will be moved by the reality so brilliantly captured by this film. It’s an instant classic, and like Up and the Toy Story series before it, it touches your heart, and makes you want to pull your loved ones a little bit closer as you leave the theater, if only for as long as you’re able. Bring some tissues, just in case.

End credits: There are funny scenes throughout, but no scene afterwards (though there are some great credits at the end and a beautiful message from the creators to their own children that many parents will echo.)

Reviewed by: Matt Baltzell on June 21, 2015