Profound films come a dime a dozen for Pixar, a studio who has been so successful that when they make good movies it’s seen as taking a step back. But of the profound films and subjects they’ve touched on, Inside Out provides the studio with one of its most challenging attempts at trying to succeed. Thankfully I can report that the film more than earns its profound status and a place amongst Pixar’s beat.
Inside Out is about a young girl named Riley, who is just living her life in a carefree joyful way, until she has to move from Minnesota to San Francisco after she turns 11. This experience is new for her and her emotions, Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Anger and Fear, struggle to deal with the change. After Sadness and Joy come into conflict after a particular core memory goes sad and get lost in her mind, Riley and her emotions struggle to deal with just how to deal with the changes in her life.
What has struck me most about the film since seeing it is how Inside Out manages to operate on different levels. It’s an adventure film and a daring look into how humans, particularly children deal with life events. This movie manages to elevate itself the more you think about the movie. Watching this girl’s island of personality crumble and her various emotions struggle for dominance (in particular when Sadness and Joy battle, forcing Anger, Disgust and Fear to take over), you can’t help but analyze the moments in your life in which you developed core memories.
Inside Out also works in that it doesn’t seek to make fun of children, but instead prove to be one of the few movies that really understands them. The movie does take a while to get going, but in this wait, Inside Out is building up the necessary empathy and understanding of Riley. I found myself having to reexamine my ideas of the character once I really understood that as youngsters we really are not in full control of our emotions, driven more by Joy, so when bad things happen its not shocking that other ones take over. That’s what was so profound about this movie, it manages to make everything psychologists talk about and things we can’t see tangible and memorable.
The movie also manages to be the best depiction/reasoning for sadness as being important to a person’s life. Much of the movie’s conflict is based on the fact that Sadness (the emotion) keeps touching memories, which makes her the antagonist to Joy. But as the film goes on it makes a grand statement about how we interpret not just sadness, but joy and the others as well, and how every emotion is valid and important to our humanity. It’s a wonderful high wire act and Pixar manages to be up to the task.