Inside Out – Film Review

Pixar has a special place in my life. I grew up on Toy Story 1 & 2, A Bug’s Life, Monster’s Inc, and Finding Nemo. Through the years watching The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Wall-E, Up!, Brave and Toy Story 3 they have become classics in my film library. Though Pixar was going through a rough patch, this film brings Pixar back to familiar territory with original ideas with great messages. After seeing this film tonight I still need time to process it entirely, but it worked on so many levels.

When you step back from it the plot from the human perspective, its simplistic and not over complicated. With so many films with overcomplicated scenarios, this one is pretty straight forward which is refreshing. How we think and feel being controlled by 5 emotions can seem like a heavy handed subject for children but the way the film portrays it shows that it is a complicated struggle, as is all life and how we make decisions. There are a lot of complex messages about how emotions are multi-dimensional and that you need more than one emotion to truly feel something. How its portrayed in the film may be more comical or entertaining but deep down its more psychological.

Congratulations, San Francisco. You’ve ruined pizza! First Hawaii, and now… YOU!

The characters were simple and well realized. A couple of the emotions were slightly one dimensional besides Joy and Sadness. Those two characters got the most attention and development. Anger has the best lines done by Lewis Black. Hilarious and well needed to infuse emotional responses from the audience. Seeing how they operated the brain and how in each of our minds we have main “lands” that reflect our personality I found to be very clever. Dream Studios was a fun way to show off how we dream as a movie production and the showcasing of our subconscious inside our brain was neat. Richard Kind was great as Bing Bong, the imaginary friend of Riley. His arch I found to be very multi-dimensional in showing how memories can be forgetting just as much as toys and how integral that is to our mind.

Being in-touch and expressive about your emotions is something everyone should do, not just children. Bottling up things inside or being one dimensional with each feeling is not the way to go. There are a lot of grays in how we feel what we do but its best to express them well. Inside Out definitely made me feel. Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust are helping me write this of course and people will begin to question after seeing this film who is taking over their mind at any time. Overall the film definitely had a solid story overall that has a great ending.

9.5/10