Inside Out

2015 animated movie

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 19/20; Abbey: 17/20; Dylan: 11/20; Buster: 17/20)

Plot: A young girl deals with her emotions following a move from the Midwest to San Francisco.

I'll start the way the theater experience started with the short. "Lava" was cute enough, but it didn't feel like anything new, and I didn't really like the song. Things just seemed too obvious and unoriginal.

Hey, look! Pixar's back! I didn't hate Monster University or anything, but with no Pixar movie at all in 2014 and what seems like a dozen sequels with an underwhelming Brave in the middle, I was getting a little worried about the company. This movie is full of originality and lovable characters, combines humor and pathos in a way that can only be described as Pixar-esque, bursts with color and imaginative imagery, and is just so smart.

A lot of people have probably seen similar ideas in literature, movies, or television shows, but has it ever been this well executed? The voice work captures the emotion characters perfectly. Poehler as Joy brings that infectious enthusiasm that she had with her Parks and Recreation character, the sort of thing that could make her really irritating if you knew her in real life but charming, even through the flaws, here. Phyllis Smith has a voice that I knew I knew while watching but had to look up later to figure it out. She's the older woman from The Office, and she's got the perfect dumpy voice for Sadness. Bill Hader, Lewis Black, and Mindy Kaling are great as Fear, Anger, and Disgust. Best of all might be Richard Kind as an imaginary friend named Bing Bong. That's a character who should only work in a movie created by the makers of Ice Age or something. You almost want him to be gone as soon as he shows up, but instead of quickly wearing out his welcome, he actually manages to get more lovable as it goes. The human characters are pushed to the side for the most part so that the focus can be on what's happening in the little girl's mind, but when they're on the screen, the people seem like they could actually be people.

As with Pixar's best work--Up, of course; Ratatouille; two of the Toy Story movies; Finding Nemo--there's a great combination of fun humor that doesn't lean on pop culture references or fart jokes and genuinely touching moments. Since you fall in love with the characters, you feel for them. Pixar's model's been copied, but the imitators often pale in comparison because they forget to create characters the audience is going to empathize with and really embrace. These are characters you care about, even when they are goofy-looking imaginary friends. I don't want to give anything away since this movie's been out less than a week, but there's a moment with Bing Bong that yanked at my lacrimal glands like the most touching Pixar moments--the end of Toy Story 3, the first ten minutes of Up, countless other moments because that's what Pixar's all about. That the creators of this are able to accomplish that with a goofy-looking imaginary friend is just amazing to me. This movie's vibrant and has very funny characters saying very funny things. You'll have fun watching the movie, and you'll laugh. But you also might cry, especially you parents once you figure out exactly what this is all about.

I think one thing I really liked about this is that there really wasn't a bad guy. Life was the antagonist in this movie, and life, as most adults know, really is often antagonistic. And the child's realization of that is really what this movie's all about. I did often wonder, especially since I watched this a few seats down from a five-year-old, whether all of this would make sense for a kid. I eventually decided that I think it's going to mean different things for different people with different ages and different experiences, really the way the best art and stories should work. I think this is a movie that might mean one thing for kids, something completely different for older kids, and something else entirely for adults. This is one of those movies that you could watch multiple times at different stages of your life and gain new meaning and wisdom from the experience.

These animated movies have gotten ridiculously realistic. During the first seconds of the "Lava" short, I wondered if Pixar was cheating and actually using shots of real water and sky and island. The realistic parts of this movie--the parts involving San Francisco or human beings--look very realistic. But what I really liked with the animation was the contrast with the way the girl's mind was animated. It still had that computer-animated look, of course, but there was something traditional about it, too. It was cartoony, and a lot of the reason was because of the freedom the animators must have had with the colors and shapes they were allowed to use. The inside of a person's mind doesn't have to look a certain way, and what the animators came up with to show us something we'll never actually see feels spontaneous and free and lively and original. There's a touch of the surreal, there are nods to many animation styles and art forms, and there's just so much to see. Without a doubt, I'll watch this again to catch details that were missed. This really did feel like an adventure inside a child's mind, and even if the idea of spending an hour and a half with an actual child might sound terrifying, I can't imagine somebody not having fun on this trip.

Finally, I just loved how intelligently this was written. There were lots of directions they could have gone with this story, and you can't cover every aspect of the human mind in one feature film. I don't know a lot about psychology or the brain, but I loved how this did explore all over. It touches on random thoughts, long-term and short-term memory, fears, ear worms. It's been a while since I've seen Donald in Mathematical Land, but in a way, this reminded me of a cross between that--or something else by Disney that is more cerebral, and Alice in Wonderland. There's an intelligent whimsy. The themes resonate, even if you're not a preteen girl, and you can just tell that these people didn't just have an idea and spit it at the audience as quickly as they could. This is a rich exploration of that girl's mindset and growth, and it's an investigation of just how all these different emotions play a part in the development of healthy-minded human beings. Something this smart can't be written hastily.

Pixar wonderfully dove into the unknown here. When I first heard about this project, I thought it was risky, the kind of thing that would have to be dumbed-down in order for kids to really enjoy it, one of those sounds-good-on-paper ideas that doesn't really translate to the big screen all that well. I'm so happy with this finished product, and after I see it a few more times, it just might end up being one of Pixar's very best.