The filmmakers of Inside Out created a brilliant story that
says a lot about embracing our bad experiences along with the good versions,
accepting change, and the dangers of repressed emotions (especially our
“negative” feelings).
Inside Out proves a thoughtful movie
that performs its every turn with the precision of a BMW.
The movie stars a
young girl named Riley and the personifications of her five core emotions: Joy,
Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger (casting Lewis Black as Anger sold me).
Fortunately, the
writer’s didn’t base this movie on me; otherwise those five emotions would’ve
been Horny, Horny, Horny, Hungry, and Still Horny (kids don’t read movie
reviews, right?).
Riley’s a likeable
kid whose world get turned upside down when her parents move her to San
Francisco.
She ought to feel a
mixture of emotional discomforts about her new home and school and the loss
of her old friends, but her parents tell her how proud they feel of her
positive attitude, so she smiles and represses her negative feelings.
In Riley’s head,
Joy works hard to keep Riley happy. Joy censors all “bad” emotions that her
coworkers (the other aforementioned emotions), especially Sadness—who Joy
wouldn’t allow to touch Riley’s memories (represented as color-coded spheres).
Due to an accident,
Joy and Sadness get booted out of the control center of Riley’s head and
discover themselves lost in the labyrinth of her long-term memories.
This represents
Riley’s inability to acknowledge her sadness or experience real joy, which
leaves her filled with nothing but a confused mess of misguided fear, disgust,
and anger.
Joy and Sadness
must find their way back home to the control center of Riley’s mind, but, to
accomplish that, they must cross one of several bridges from several islands.
I’ll get to those
islands in a moment, but first I want to mention, on that last note, that
bridges play an important role in this movie (as bridges often do).
I believe that the
writers chose to move Riley to San Francisco to move her
over the Golden Gate Bridge as a representation of her crossing into her new
life.
To illustrate the
point that she feels less than thrilled with her family’s move, she observes
that the bridge isn’t actually made of gold.
Riley decides,
towards the end of the movie, to run away from home, and she nearly crosses
that same bridge again, taking her away from her family.
Back to those
islands in Riley’s head . . .
Each island
represents a foundation of memories that anchor Riley’s personality. While she
fails to process her depression, allows her other negative emotions to take
control, she behaves in ways that prove unlike her, and thus these islands crumble and take with them the bridges that Joy and Sadness require to
return to their command center and restore Riley to normal.
Inside Out knows how to press its
audience’s emotional buttons, and it knows when it’s pressed hard enough and
needs to break out some comic relief. Many of the jokes seem, at first, merely
clever, but they each provide a certain amount of payoff before the final credits
roll.
I know that 2015
has a long way to go, but I safely predict that the winner for this year’s best-animated
feature already arrived.
If I had to list a grievance, it wouldn’t
regard Inside Out so much as the
animated short that precedes it. Lava,
which features a musical volcano, comes across as tone deaf.
I couldn’t decide
if I ought to feel sad, amused, or a combination. The entire short felt
longwinded and confused with itself—although I do see how that might accidentally foreshadow Riley's predicament.
Inside Out reminds me of an early
episode of The Simpsons when Lisa
felt depressed, and not even the most decorated Care Bear could cheer her up . .
. until her mother grants her permission to feel sad if that’s what she needs.
Long story short,
don’t miss this movie . . . but you can take an extra few minutes to grab some
popcorn. You won’t miss the volcano short.
Thanks for reading.
You can find my novel
series (fantasy based on Japanese mythology) at: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Darkwana&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3ADarkwana
An
inside look at my novels (such as Daughters of Darkwana, which you can now find on Kindle) at Darkwana.blogspot.com
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