Inside Out
Synopsis:
After young Riley is uprooted from her Midwest life and
moved to San Francisco, her emotions – Joy, Fear, Anger, disgust and Sadness –
conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house and school.
Review
The films starts with the birth of baby Riley and with her,
her memories and emotions are formed. Pixar finds a creative way to procedure
personalities for the different emotions that make up the person that is Riley.
At the start we are introduced to Joy, a very hyper go-getter of an emotion whose
main goal is to make Riley happy. Shortly after, we are introduced to the other
4 emotions that make up the base of Riley’s personality: Sadness, Fear, Anger
and Disgust. These 5 emotions monitor Riley’s day-to-day life and determine how
she will respond to moments with an operating board that resembles the console
you would see on a sci-fi space ship. The main operator of the board is Joy,
her outgoing personality easily takes over. Focusing on her mission to make Riley
as happy as possible with the belief that only happy feelings/memories count.
Riley’s life is quickly thrown for a loop as her and her
family move from Minnesota to San Francisco. The tone of the movie changes as
multiple events take place to paint San Francisco as an undesirable place for
Riley to live. While Joy is
micro-managing the emotions to try to make Riley as happy as possible, Sadness
is constantly isolated and left out. As Riley is adjusting to her new life,
tragedy strikes in the control panel and Joy and Sadness find themselves lost
in a labyrinth made of landmarks that include places like an endless field of
shelves with the stock of Riley’s memories, a theme park that is like world of
imagination, a film studio where dreams are made and a danger zone for abstract
thoughts where things change shape and dimension when it is activated.
While on their journey back to the control panel, Joy and
Sadness run into several random characters that take care of Riley’s memories.
One of the characters they run into is Riley’s long lost imaginary friend Bing
Bong, a crazy mix of a cat-elephant-dolphin hybrid. He acts as a guild for Joy
and Sadness to help them try to catch a train back to the control panel. Bing
Bong is easy for children to like and laugh at as a bright happy character bouncing
around and is easily distracted from the mission. For adults, Bing Bong has a different
purpose in the film, almost as if he represents what is lost when transitioning
in life from a child to an adult. After sacrificing himself to save Joy from a
dark area where memories go to be forgotten, Bing Bong symbolically fades away.
A concept that most likely flies over the short heads of the
young target audience, is easy for adults to see and relate to, both because
they went through it and for the fact that their children will be going through
it soon as well. Pixar finds a unique way to explore the mechanics of how
things can be forgotten and how core beliefs can shape who a person is and how
a personality can change when life happens. Overall Inside Out finds a creative
way to show how valuable each emotion is and that sadness is just as important
as happiness.
Final thoughts:
The movie it self may feel a tad slow at times as the film
has moments clearly meant for children’s entertainment, but over all the film
is adorable and easily relatable for any age. Each emotion has its own way of
making you laugh, even with its obvious stereotypes. Also if you cry easy in
movies, I may recommend bringing some tissues, I can see why people have shed a
tear or two during this film.
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