Inside Out will be shown in COLLEGE psychology classes for decades. To remedy Pixar’s recent downturn, the creative team summoned their favorite doctor: Pete Docter, the director of Up and Monsters, Inc. Docter helped write and direct this imaginative, brilliantly crafted study of life inside the mind of Riley (Kaitlyn Dias), a normal 11 year old girl. Never has a psychology lesson been so fun and so moving.
Tough times are on the horizon for little Riley. Her dad (Kyle MacLachlan) has been reassigned to San Francisco, uprooting Riley and her mom (Diane Lane) from their childhood home in Minnesota. In Riley’s head, many of her emotions are trying to make the best of the situation. The team lead Joy (Amy Poehler) helps keep Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Louis Black), and Disgust (Mindy Kaling) cautiously optimistic about the change, but Sadness (Phyllis Smith) keeps intervening and making everything blue. Things come to a head when Joy and Sadness accidentally get ejected from the command center, forcing them to try to find their way back. Meanwhile, the other emotions to keep Riley from succumbing to the turmoil the move has done to her.
Inside Out’s world building is amazing. Kudos to Pixar’s creative team for assembling an accessible facsimile of the mind of a person. By designing the mind like a SIMS city, Inside Out has built a flexible playground to examine the thought process. Of course memories would exist in a library like setting, waiting to be retrieved. Obviously a landfill is where the lost memories go. And indubitably a molding contraption/press would make a perfect equipment for abstract thought. Even if Inside Out was just a mind allegory creation, it would be a joy to see which awesome metaphor would come next.
Fortunately, this is Pixar, so Inside Out also packs a deep, deep emotional punch. Every person eventually grows up and realizes that all of life cannot be just happiness and joy. Eventually, other emotions show up, leading to the ubiquitous life of emotional complexity. Pixar posits that as a person grows, while joy hopefully is the dominating form of expression, other emotions should work WITH joy to develop into a richer, more complex person. As such, past treasured memories might not just encompass a singular emotion, but a complicated mess of feelings: HEADY stuff for a kids film. Pixar tries to drive this point home for children using the Joy/Sadness adventure outside of the control center, but this material will hit adults much harder than kids. So parents, your kids will like the wacky adventures and bright colors, but make sure you bring a tissue or two.
Voice casting is on the nose, with Pixar getting its casting exactly right. Amy Poehler’s Joy is animated Leslie Knope: Riley’s oldest civil servant who will strive at nothing to see her happy. Poehler’s infectious energy plays very well off of Phyllis Smith’s (from the Office) Sadness, showcasing a world weariness only Eeyore could relate to. Bill Hader, Lewis Black, and Mindy Kaling, are used just enough to show some nuance for the other emotions, but not enough that they become grating. Kaitlyn Dias sounds like every 11 year old girl I’ve ever heard, and Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan make the parents richer than they had any right to be.
Inside Out has reenergized my excitement for Pixar. After the sequel rut they were in, the studio vaults another breathtaking original idea into its resume with Inside Out, among the best films Pixar has ever released. Part of me was a little sad that they used an 11 year old girl instead of a boy, until I realized Pixar inserted that film into Inside Out as well. You’ll know it when you see it, its about 30 seconds long.