Inside Out is the latest Pixar film, it’s mostly set in the mind of a young girl named Riley, and how emotions lead her through life as she handles a move from Minnesota to San Francisco. These emotions are; Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear and Anger. Inside Out is directed by Pete Docter, with the writing credits going to Docter, again, and Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley, with story by Docter and Ronnie del Carmen.
The film stars; Amy Poehler, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling, Bill Hader and Phyllis Smith.
The good; the story. But more on that later.
The look of the film, I’m specifically talking about the way they make a person’s mind look. There’s an internal logic that works, and stays consistent. This is similar to magic in fantasy films, but it’s not a crutch where magic causes the problem, and then it’s magic that solves the problem. The characters use the logic of the world that’s established to solve and overcome the problem, bravo!
Ok, so back to the story. I won’t go into the details of why the story is so good, but I will tell you what the story and writing do… The film mostly takes place in the mind of a girl and how at the control center of her mind each emotion gets a chance to react to any given situation via a control console. The internal logic of a person’s mind is illustrated beautifully, things work and function in a way that’s very thought out and if this were a machine, you’d see how it functions.
The story also allows you to connect to every character, we have all felt some sort of big change in our lives like moving to a new city or a new school, but this time we get to see how emotions control our external appearances and functions.
But above all, the story in simple yet engaging. It’s a story about a young girl handling a big change in her life, sounds simple right? Yet Inside Out manages to gives us a different perspective on how emotions are a part of our lives by giving them a personified cast and form. As much as we’re invested in Riley’s state of mind, we’re engaged on how these five emotions will handle the changes in Riley’s life.
The bad; I didn’t want it to end.
This isn’t necessarily about the movie, more about the movie going experience.
I went to the new Chula Vista AMC theatres where they serve alcohol and have reclining leather seats, not a bad theatre, but it still brings around some riff-raff. There was this lady picking and scratching her feet, I can’t imagine the people behind her seeing this silhouette of her doing this during the movie… gross…
If a child is too young to sit still for more than five minutes… why are you bringing them to a theatre? Let alone a 10:45pm showing? Parents these days… sheesh…
Overall, an excellent film that should be seen on the big screen. The performances of all the actors personifying a specific emotion is perfection. The casting is great. The writing is awesome. And it’s a film that the young and old can enjoy (well, not the too young). Inside Out is about emotions, so it’s fitting that the film allows us to experience emotions, from laughing to crying to more laughing. Thank you Pixar.