Disney Pixar
You can almost always count on Pixar to give us a great animated film, even when parent company Disney blew them out of the water with Frozen and Pixar’s own forays into Cars and Planes sequels were met with less than enthusiastic results. Many were beginning to wonder if the great story development Pixar had become famous for, spending years getting a story just right before working on a single pixel, had fallen by the wayside after the Disney acquisition and the focus on sequels. It can be argued that Pixar’s last great film was 2010’s Toy Story 3.
Inside Out is pure Pixar magic. tweet
Pixar is back on the big screen now with what on the surface looks like a weird little movie called Inside Out. It is anything but weird, and it’s pure Pixar magic. The story is simple enough on the surface: young Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) has everything at her home in Minnesota — a loving family, great friends, a love of hockey at which she is very skilled. But her father (Kyle MacLachlan) takes a new job in San Francisco, uprooting their lives and all Riley knows and loves, but she manages to remain upbeat, even when faced with broccoli pizza. Riley remains so cheerful because he emotions are controlled by Joy (Amy Poehler), who manages all of the emotions in Riley’s head (the Headquarters, as it were). Even when Fear (Bill Hader), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) or Anger (Lewis Black, who else) barge into a situation, Joy manages to bring Riley back to her happy place.
Joy, however, has her job cut out for her managing not only the other emotions, but Riley’s memories as well. There are core memories of family, friends, hockey and just being goofy that have to be protected because they make Riley who she is. There are all the various memories and emotions from the day that are stored away, and Joy uses the happy memories to cheer Riley up when she’s down. But one emotion, Sadness (Phyllis Smith), is always in the way, just on the edge of making things go bad. When it’s discovered that one touch of Sadness will turn a happy memory blue, Joy has to keep Sadness away from the core happy memories out of fear that they will be permanently transformed. An accident at Headquarters dumps all of the core memories, sending Joy and Sadness on a quest through Riley’s vast memory bank to retrieve them. But as Riley’s personality begins to crumble, getting back to Headquarters becomes more and more difficult.
It’s probably cliché already to say Inside Out runs a gamut of emotions, but the movie certainly does make you feel quite a few of them. The story, Riley’s story, is just so relatable to anyone who has experienced being a teenager. Even if your life hasn’t been uprooted, you can still identify with being an outsider at some point and going through that teenage angst period of life. The writers, Pete Docter, Ronaldo del Carmen, Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley, were obviously working from experience when crafting a fine screenplay that never gives a false note. Even with some of the more slapsticky elements courtesy of Fear and Anger (as well as the humorous looks inside the heads of Riley’s parents and some other characters), you are still fully invested in Riley’s story.
It’s not only the beautiful script, but the absolutely wonderful performances and masterful animation that draws you into the story. Amy Poehler is just perfect as Joy, radiating sheer enthusiasm for everything but never once becoming grating, which the character could have in other hands. As much as you identify with Riley, Poehler also makes you identify with Joy as she tries to juggle everything, keeping the emotions in check, and then doing what she can to give Riley back her personality. You feel for Joy as she begins to experience her own range of emotions as she fears they won’t be able to get back to Headquarters. Joy is a character you root for.
Phyllis Smith is also terrific as Sadness. She’s kind of the Eeyore of the story, but she has a lot of curiosity that gets her into trouble even though she doesn’t mean any harm. Joy has incredible patience with her, and Smith’s fine voice work makes you kind of love Sadness as much as you do Joy. Hader and Kaling do fine work as Fear and Disgust, and the role of Anger was certainly tailor-made for Lewis Black. Anger is probably the funniest of the group just because of the way he will storm into any situation just to let loose, and many of us can certainly relate to how quickly our own tempers can flare up. We just have to hope our own Joys will plug in a happy memory to calm us down (and not let those other characters torture us with a commercial jingle on an endless loop).
Inside Out is bright and colorful inside Riley’s head, but sticks to a more realistic look in the real world. As Joy and Sadness journey back to Headquarters, the shortcut through Riley’s abstract memory is hilariously surreal. They also meet Riley’s long-forgotten imaginary friend Bing Bong (Richard Kind), part cotton candy, part elephant, part dolphin who knows a way back to Headquarters, but for all of his silliness will still manage to break your heart in probably the film’s saddest moment. But life is made up of a range of emotions, and Pixar has taken this very complicated concept of what makes us tick and transformed it into something marvelous for us all to enjoy.
Disney Pixar
Prior to Inside Out, Pixar presents a lovely short film, Lava, about a volcano in the middle of the ocean who yearns for love. The story is told solely through song with the word “lava” being the volcano’s way of singing “someone to love-ah.” It’s very sweet, and even though the main character is a volcano, he still manages to pull your heartstrings as he begins to sink back into the ocean over time, but still with the hope that he’ll have that companion. It may not have all of the emotional heft of last year’s Oscar winner Feast, but it will make you all warm and fuzzy by the end.
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