I’ve been a big fan of many of Disney’s Pixar movies over the years including all three of the Toy Story’s, A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo, Up, The Incredibles, and Cars. The realistic animation and uplifting story lines of each even moved me enough to purchase them for my home DVD collection. But now I know I’ll need to add another one to that collection when it eventually arrives on DVD and that’s Pixar’s latest film, which is titled Inside Out.
Inside Out is an interesting tale about a girl named Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) and the emotions that live within her, where each has their own unique personality: Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), and Disgust (Mindy Kaling). Residing in the headquarters of Riley’s mind, it is they who are responsible for handling every situation in her life and helping her to form her memories, of which are all stored in small spheres that produce a certain color depending on the emotion attached to the memory itself.
Joy’s sole duty is to make her happy, while Fear’s is to keep her safe. Anger’s main job is to help her stand up for herself, while Disgust’s is to steer her away from things she doesn’t like. And last, but definitely not least is Sadness, who’s actually totally unsure of her primary responsibility and instead feels the only thing she really does is make a mess of everything. But how each handles all the circumstances of Riley’s life becomes far more evident when her parents uproot her from their hometown of Minneapolis and move to San Francisco due to her father’s job. As it is there in San Francisco that Riley faces many of the pains we all face when growing up, including loneliness, rejection, embarrassment, and despair. Unfortunately, Joy does everything she can to take control of Riley’s life, trying to constantly keep her happy, which only leads to a mishap with core memories when Sadness touches one of them. The adventure the two emotions take deep into Riley’s inner world to correct the calamity they created is what makes this movie truly original and refreshing.
What I found most fascinating and ironic about Inside Out is how my own emotions ran the entire gamut alongside Riley’s. I found myself feeling her joy, sadness, anger, disgust, and fear and honestly, that’s precisely why I loved this film as much as I did. What’s funny is how my partner and I kept pointing the fingers at each other during the entire movie at some of the specific ways each individual emotion acted, because we clearly saw ourselves in so many of them.
The fact is I laughed, I cried, was occasionally irritated, at times nervous, and even became a little repulsed while watching Inside Out. But it wasn’t until afterwards did I realize that’s pretty much how my own life ultimately is, so maybe that’s why I absolutely treasured this priceless gem of a movie like I did.
Pixar truly outdid themselves this time and I without a doubt give this film my best rating of 5 stars. When an animated picture about emotions can produce the exact same ones within me that ranged from explosive laughter to profuse tears, it’s relatively easy for me to say there’s definitely a lot of that Disney magic imbedded within Inside Out…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
PS – And don’t forget to stay for the credits, as I’m sure you’ll be laughing out of your seat then too! My personal favorite was the final scene with the cat…
It sounds like a great movie, Andrew. It sounds a *lot* more enjoyable than dinosaurs turning a theme park into a buffet. And yes, I’m a wimp – dinosaurs are interesting. Dinosaurs rending people limb-from-limb… not at all.