dir. by Pete Docter, Ronaldo Del Carmen
BEST NEW FEATUREAfter a few rocky years, Pixar re-emerges in top form with Inside Out, a film as smart, funny, and emotional as the studio's very best.
Joy (Amy Poehler) is an emotion in the mind of a little girl named Riley (Kaitlyn Dias). She's soon joined by Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), and Disgust (Mindy Kaling), and together they control Riley's emotions. However, one day, Riley moves from her home in Minnesota to a town house in San Francisco, and the ensuing emotional struggle results in Joy and Sadness being far away from mission control-and carrying Riley's core memories (that is, memories that power her main personality traits) with them. This premise allows the story to operate on two levels: The first level is inside Riley's brain, which takes the form of a relatively typical animated adventure through colourful landscapes, and the second level is on the outside, where what happens on the inside has serious impacts on how Riley acts and reacts to this tough time in her life. What happens on the outside is a relatively small portion of the film, but it's so deeply intertwined with the emotions' storyline that it makes Joy and Sadness' adventure much more than it would otherwise be.
In fact, each of the fantastical characters and colourful environments that the two main emotions find represents something directly related to Riley's mind or to her childhood. Not only is it impressive how much the screenplay is able to touch upon without feeling crowded, but every single element is cleverly and creatively imagined to make a fully coherent world that operates just as well on a symbolic level as it does on a literal level. In Long Term Memory, for example, some of the film's "brain workers" trash memories which Riley doesn't care about any more. Although a lot of animated film tropes are here and accounted for, each is given new life through the context of how it relates to Riley's mind.
The bright visuals and creative designs are quite possibly some of Pixar's best, too. The emotions are cute, and boast cartoonish designs that have an air of familiarity but are at the same time creative and unique. The unifying trait among them is a fuzzy texture on their skin, which seems perfect for translating into plush toys. The locations themselves are colourful and vibrant, filled with life when the plot suggests they would be, and cold and decrepit when the opposite is true. The texture work here is fantastic all around: This is an absolutely gorgeous movie, filled with flowing animation and such attention to detail that it seems almost perfectionist. Of course, Pixar is one of the biggest studios in the industry, so this is to be expected, but that doesn't take away from just how dazzling the visuals really are. Similarly, the voice acting-by actors who tend to play in live action, oddly enough-is fantastic. Usually, voice work is done by dedicated voice actors, but these are A-grade performances by very talented actors, matching the characters superbly and sounding like the actors had a lot of fun with their performances.
Inside Out is, at its heart, a story about growing up, and while it only uses a small time frame from Riley's life, all sorts of ideas are established about new experiences, dealing with hardship, and how people change as they grow older, among other things. As said, Joy and Sadness' journey through the world of Riley's mind touches upon a lot of ideas, and through here they learn about how Riley's mind works. The world Pixar has created seems to have been designed with an actual base in psychology, but although there's a lot of complex ideas explored, each and every one of them is presented in a way that's easy for children to understand without talking down to them. That's not to say that these ideas won't interest adults, though: While some parts might be things that the kids' parents or older viewers have already sorted out, there's a few ideas that even adults still struggle with. One of these is essential to the film: the importance of sadness. Now, I'm not gonna go into too much detail so I don't spoil the film, but while Sadness starts out seeming useless and harmful, it's eventually realized that she's just as important as the other emotions.
Animated movies tend to play on two emotions in particular: joy and sadness. That these are the two main characters may or may not be an acknowledgement of that, but Inside Out succeeds on both fronts regardless. This is an exciting, bright, and most importantly very funny film. The sense of humour ranges from relatively silly stuff to references for the parents, but whenever it aims for laughter, it succeeds. This is in part due to the incredibly clever writing, but behind every joke there's something even more important: Heart. Heart is a tough thing to explain, but one possible description would be that the film's writing comes from a place of passion and empathy for its audience. Never is it cynical or mean-spirited, and it's neither too mature for children or juvenile for adults. This isn't to say that the film isn't mature, because it's perhaps one of the most mature films I've seen this year, in part because of how it embraces childhood without being juvenile.
As for the emotional portion, Inside Out has had something of a reputation for making people cry, and a well-deserved one at that. As the events within Riley's mind reflect upon her, she goes through a very real crisis, and one which reaches a resolution that, while positive, doesn't bury emotional truth over excessive positivity. This is a crucial balance that pervades all of the film, and it's one that few stories fully understand, but Pixar seems to have full comprehension of what makes scenes of powerful emotion truly work. In a way, it's all because the film really makes us care about the characters. The emotions are funny and weird, but they also care very deeply about Riley and are good-natured. They generally embody the emotion they represent, but they're also shown experiencing other emotions on their own. And then there's Riley, who goes through some very real troubles and who we care about partially by way of the emotion characters and partially through our own sympathy. She is a well-realized, realistic kid who I imagine younger viewers (and maybe even older viewers) relating to a lot.
Inside Out is preceded by a charming musical short, Lava. It's a very simple story about a volcano who wishes for another volcano to love, and although it's relatively simple (and absolutely blown away by the main feature), it displays some gorgeous animation and a lot of charm. The main conceit appears to be based on a particularly lame pun, but the music is catchy and the story is ultimately very sweet regardless of its lack of complexity. Really pleasant stuff.
It's hard to imagine any animated films coming out this year which will top Pixar's newest masterpiece, and seeing the famous studio back on top form is an absolute delight. Inside Out possesses all the depth, humour, and emotion of the best animated films, alongside absolutely gorgeous animation and an equal level of appeal for children and adults. In fact, I think that watching this as an adult might be a very different experience from watching it as a child, though both experiences are surely absolutely fantastic. Even moreso than 2013's Frozen, Inside Out seems poised to become a classic-and a very deserving one at that.
10/10
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