Grade: A
Released: 2015
Directed by: Pete Doctor, Ronaldo Del Carmen
Starring: Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Lewis Black
The first thing that hit me as I walked out the screening room for Inside Out was, oddly enough, a huge sense of a relief. It was a like seeing a good friend finally rebound after battling through some difficult times. Indeed, after recent efforts that ranged from uneven (Brave) to downright awful (Cars 2), Pixar fans need not fear: just like the Aerosmith song of the same name, the studio is definitely back in the saddle again.
What makes Inside Out such an incredible feat is that it manages an accurate, provocative, emotionally engaging narrative that doesn’t have a proverbial “bad guy”. There is no tyrannical stuffed animal as there was in Toy Story 3, nor is there a smugly sinister shark as there was in Finding Nemo. Instead, a tale is weaved about how our minds react to the life-changing crises that manifest themselves around us, and also how these reactions inform our future decisions, in both the long and short-term. With this effort, Pixar has managed to do the near-impossible: tell a very adult story and package it as something the entire family can enjoy.
The story follows a young girl named Riley (voice of Kaitlyn Dias), an upbeat, soon-to-be teenager who is uprooted from Minnesota to San Francisco when her father takes a new job. Trying to come to terms with what would be a difficult transition for any child, we’re given a behind the scenes glimpse into the emotions who are trying to adapt to these new circumstances. You have plucky Joy (Amy Poehler), gloomy Sadness (Phyllis Smith of The Office fame), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Bill Hader) and Disgust (Mindy Kaling). From the beginning, it’s clear that Joy is the voice of reason and the unspoken leader of the group, so when she and Sadness accidentally get sucked out of the “control room” inside Riley’s mind, the remaining three emotions are left to run the ship and, as one might expect, things go awry.
The picture, as one would expect from a studio of Pixar’s track record, is mesmerizingly animated. Each emotion, as a character, is fully realized and meshes well with their vocal component (more on that in a bit) – these may be the voices inside Riley’s head, but damned if they won’t be how I picture the myriad of emotions that populate my own. The actual parts of one’s brain are also imaginatively drawn, from the sometimes-running, sometimes-not Train of Thought to the complex labyrinth that constitutes our memories. The visuals bring back a certain joie-de-vivre that I haven’t seen in an animated picture since the aforementioned Toy Story 3, and those were some pretty big shoes (or cowboy boots) to fill.
Even bigger praise must be given to the cast, who each take turns carrying Inside Out on their backs for certain stretches. Amy Poehler is spunky, funny and, in one key scene, surprisingly vulnerable as Joy, whose never-say-die attitude is bent but never broken. The other actors are perfectly cast, from the snarky wisecracks of Mindy Kaling’s Disgust to the scenery-chewing antics of Lewis Black’s Anger. That being said, there are two standouts: Phyllis Smith does downright brilliant work as Sadness, who ends up being more helpful than one might imagine from the outset of the movie. There’s also Richard Kind in a small role as Riley’s all-but-forgotten imaginary friend Bing Bong – a scene featuring him and Joy has the power to make the waterworks flow unlike anything Pixar has done before.
In general, Inside Out is a rarity these days: a summer movie that actually makes you think and feel, profoundly so, instead of sitting through another two hours of mindless explosions and 3D gimmickry. I know that I normally lambast sequels and the idea of milking a franchise for all its monetary worth, but I would mind seeing Pixar exploring these characters and this world even further. The writing is clever and consistent (there’s an excellent running gag involving a commercial jingle), the cast is uniformly superb and the visual renderings among the best we’ve seen in the realm of animated features. As a movie that will leave you on an unbeatable high as we enter the second half of beach season, Inside Out will be hard to top.
2 Guys, Movies & a Mic 