Film Review - Inside Out (2015)

I’ll it to being somewhat apprehensive approaching Pixar’s latest film, Inside Out. Depicting a team of inner-brain technicians responsible for istrating the various emotions of their little girl host, Inside Out sounds remarkably like a posh version of longstanding boys’ comic The Numskulls. In which a team of thankless workers effectively ‘run’ a fully grown man, with the complexities of everyday existence boiled down into the daily humdrum grind of a of blue-collar workplace.

Thankfully, Inside Out is sweeter, more interesting and more ambitious than the Beezer and Beano comic strip, presenting a nuanced and thoughtful look at the inner turmoil of a young mind. Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) is 11years old when she relocates from Minnesota to San Francisco leaving her friends and former life behind. This throws up the first real problem for the five-strong team of emotions: Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black) and Disgust (Mindy Kaling) who work the control within Riley’s brain affecting her moods. Until now, Joy has largely been in control, keeping her more or less happy, influencing the vast mind map of experiences inside her brain and looking after her core memories. The move has upset Riley and Sadness is beginning to exert more influence over her daily emotions. A disastrous first day at school gives Riley her first sad core memory. The ensuing control room malfunction sees Joy and Sadness ejected into the vast corridors of Riley’s long-term memory, with a long journey back through the various compartments and recesses of her mind.

The construction of Riley’s mind is a fascinating, charming and totally ingenious way of placing the intangible on the screen. Memories are stored in a vast library-like structure filling endless shelves in labyrinthine fashion. Tiny hard-hat wearing workers carry out the day-to-day istration of the place, hovering-up faded memories and disposing of them in the dump. Pure imagination takes up its own space, covering part of Riley’s brain in fantastic dream-logic nonsense. Whole streets are made of French fries and a giant machine generates an endless supply of perfect boyfriends. There are the darker lower levels of the subconscious which play host to Riley’s deepest fears; and a truly great sequence in which Joy, Sadness and Riley’s hitherto forgotten imaginary friend Bing Bong find themselves simplifying into a state of abstract thought. The inner-space that directors Pete Docter and Ronnie del Carmen have created is not only wild enough to amuse younger audiences, but fraught with enough danger and vulnerability that adults will empathise with much of the tribulation Riley and her emotions go through.

This is no mere whimsy either. As they make their way through the vastness of Riley’s mind, a previously controlling Joy begins to see the value of sadness. The very landscape of Riley’s brain first crumbles, then is rebuilt as she adjusts to her new lifestyle and her emotions themselves become more complex. No mere glorified adaptation or single-minded reproduction of previous inner-body experiences, Inside Out is a remarkably charming and positively smart appreciation of the value of mixed emotions.