Inside Out

I have always loved Pixar. They have the unique ability to tell compelling and original stories again and again without fail. Even the lesser of their movies are financial and critical successes. They can balance realistic relationships, they can nail both intelligent and silly jokes, they can pull on your heart strings, and they can advance the technology, sophistication and art that is animation. Pixar is easily the leading studio standard for Animation and in fact, Hollywood in general. Inside Out, is proof of that.

Pete Doctor writes and directs this beautiful movie that shows the inner turmoil of an eleven year-old's emotions. Influenced by Doctor's own daughters, Inside Out wonderfully illustrates the complexity of a young girl's mind while trying to find their identity transitioning into adolescence. Once again proving that animation is not a genre but a chosen medium/art form, we follow the emotions in Riley's head, Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), and Fear (Bill Hader) in a thought provoking and heart felt journey of discovery.

The greatest quality of this movie is it's story. Funny how rare that is nowadays... I absolutely loved every character and the journey they all went on. In the beginning, every emotion is purely that emotion. Joy is joy, and Anger is anger. They don't rely on each other, they just work together. As we progress these characters grow more complex and don't always represent their named emotion. Joy feels sadness, and Sadness feels joy. As they explore the mysterious corners of Riley's mind, they discover more of their own past and their potential future.

Inside Out doesn't portray what normally comes to mind when you think of an animated movie. Today, most animated movies are targeted to families with little kids, and then carefully balanced so that the kids and parents can enjoy the movie. They teach courage, faithfulness, love, self-respect, honesty, etc., all the while making jokes, singing songs and bringing life to inanimate objects. It's a very fine line that caters to two audiences at one time. While that kind of movie is great at times, this is not that movie. Sure, I did see kids in the theater. I saw courage, love, honesty portrayed in the main characters, and I did laugh out loud multiple times. I still don't think this is a "kids" movie. I honestly believe this must have been one of the hardest movies to produce and market for Pixar because it doesn't work like their past films. I think it's closest relative would be Finding Nemo because both movies have deep, emotional characters trying to find their way in a brand new world. Inside Out tackles crucial, resounding issues that every person on earth has felt: the pain of losing someone you love, the joy of success or a beautiful day, the confusion and frustration of changing everything you know, the anger and fear of not knowing what is going to come. Riley (Kaitlyn Dias), is just a young girl discovering her emotions and the importance of every single one of them.

As Joy and Sadness traverse Riley's mind, Pixar really shows off it's fun side. They play with common phrases such as "train of thought" and "abstract thought," then show how dreams are made and what happens to long term memories. It's a lot of fun to see how they can twist psychological terms and phrases and make them into useful story points. For example, the train of thought is an actual train that brings thoughts to the brain (they obviously needed to stock up on thoughts to daydream about later just in case school gets boring). Pixar has always filled their movies with little jokes and hidden secrets, and I think the way they used the landscape of the mind was one of them. It was fun to see how Pixar creatively weaved it's way around the mind and played with different types of consciousness, and how emotions effect your perception of your world.

What makes a great story even better? A fantastic cast. Animation is always difficult to cast because you have to try and find a voice and personality that fits your character, and yet follow the trend of casting high-profile names so that your movie has a little bit of star power behind it. Other animation studios seem to have trouble here as they usually go for the bigger names before the voice. While Pixar isn't afraid of casting big names (Tom Hanks in Toy Story and Billy Crystal in Monsters, Inc.), they focus on the soul of the character first and go from there. That is where the real magic happens. It also seems like they cast in teams. I'm not positive about this but I think they may even record actors together so they can play off of each other. So not only do they cast the voice and personality before the star power, but they also keep in mind the chemistry between the actors. Once you find that perfect pocket of chemistry and character soul, you're golden.

Normally when a big studio like Pixar/Disney/DreamWorks comes out with a new movie they advance the animation technology in some way. Inside Out didn't have any "wow" moments for me as far as the animation and design goes, because that aspect of the movie took a back seat. It honestly was slightly boring to look at because it was so empty. Now I realize that may be a story point because we're in the mind of a child who still has thousands of days to seize, but it wasn't anything exciting. What was more important was the acting. There were subtle acting performances that were just perfection. I don't think I've seen such awesome acting from an animated character since Toy Story 3, or even Dawn of the Planet of the Apes if you want to go that route. Subtle acting in animation is very difficult and Pixar's animation team should be very, very proud of themselves for accomplishing just that.

Now that I've spent a couple days sifting through my own thoughts on this I can positively say, I adore this movie. There are so many other positives that I can get into but I don't want to make this entry even longer. Inside Out isn't a game changer because of the technology, but it is a game changer for what should be expected of every animation studio, and filmmaker out there. This was a compelling and heartfelt story that I believe should be watched by every parent and teenager to better understand each other and themselves. We are all uniquely and beautifully made, emotions and all. It's funny how a "kids" movie can help us see that.

One more thing: Bing Bong.... The best imaginary friend a kid could ask for.