Image: movies.disney.com
Many a movie is said to do two things, or at least try to: make audiences feel, and get inside their heads. Both are bandied about as markers of excellence, and when either is achieved, a film is certainly all the better for it. Rarely has each been accomplished in such potent, poignant fashion as Inside Out.
To understand how the latest Pixar feature, and certainly one of the Disney-owned animation studio’s greatest efforts, attains such aims is to understand how it came to be. Writer/director Pete Docter, a veteran responsible for helming Monsters, Inc and Up, as well as conceiving the original stories for Toy Story and WALL-E, wanted an insight into what his 11-year-old daughter was thinking at a time when her childhood was about to blossom into maturity. Her pre-teen melancholy inspired his contemplation of the motivations for her mindset in the way only a filmmaker can. With first-time feature co-scribes Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley, as well experienced storyboard artist and co-director Ronaldo Del Carmen, he created an offering that attempts to explain just that.
Docter’s daughter is given an on-screen surrogate in the form of Riley (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias, The Shifting), a happy Minneapolis native thrown into disarray when her parents (Man of Steel‘s Diane Lane and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s Kyle MacLachlan) relocate their family to San Francisco. The trauma of attending a new school, heightened by homesickness plus trepidation about change, causes her usually happy-go-lucky personality to fall into disarray. Actually, in the recesses of her brain, that’s exactly what her panel of emotions – Joy (Amy Poehler, TV’s Parks and Recreation), Fear (Bill Hader, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby), Sadness (Phyllis Smith, The Office), Disgust (Mindy Kaling, The Mindy Project) and Anger (Lewis Black, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart) – are doing. The forces inside her head must undertake their own journey to help Riley accept her new normality.
This might seem like dark territory for a film aimed at all ages; however, like much of Pixar’s best outings, the path to coping with life’s ebbs and flows is paved with taking the bad with the good. That negativity rears its head is in relation to Riley’s internal and external ups and downs only, for there’s nothing else in the film that could garner disapproval. Indeed, from the very concept of exploring our deepest sentiments to the ingenious way it puts that idea into action, the movie presents an inventive, enchanting and intelligent vision of how people learn to cope with the world. Inside Out is a film that finds the perfect visual manifestation for the way our perceptions and memories evolve and adapt over time, after all – as coloured, here literally, by our emotions.
Such an approach equates to a bright, busy yet never overblown animated offering that visits different islands of personality, takes a train of thought, gives the abstract its moment, and revels in creativity — personified by Bing Bong (Richard Kind, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), Riley’s long-lost imaginary friend. There’s much to endear the movie to audiences in its melange of the mind, though when it comes to casting, the feature’s energy is dialled up several notches. As fans of her sitcom stylings will be aware, Poehler has perfected unbridled enthusiasm on the small screen, and does so again with a mastery of nuance in her vocal range. Wishing for Joy to bring, well, joy to the screen is a by-product of her infectious exuberance, but never does her warmth overpower the film’s other feelings, or her co-stars.
In fact, Poheler’s work, as well as her rapport with Hader, Kaling, Black and particularly Smith and Kind, demonstrate what Inside Out champions above all else: harmony and balance. The candy hues that enliven Riley’s inner workings are offset by the muted tones in which she sees her real world, just as her lashings of happiness find a place for flutterings of sadness. The former, cheerful states may appeal to younger viewers, but it is the latter, tempered visages that resonate beyond the initial rush of fun. That’s how the memorable movie achieves its sought-after feats, truly reflecting the reality and chaos of everyone’s headspace while evoking honest, earnest, authentic emotion.
Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5
Inside Out
Directors: Pete Docter and Ronaldo Del Carmen
USA, 2015, 94 mins
Release date: June 18
Distributor: Disney
Rated: PG
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