Inside Out Review

When a little girl has to leave her home and childhood friends and move to San Francisco, the emotions inside her head conflict on how best to handle the new school, friends and city.

Inside Out is not a film which seeks to entertain but to educate. Though there are funny parts in it and lots of colours to keep the attention of children, Inside Out is a really mature film that goes deep into the psychology of human beings and the importance of properly expressing emotions. I would go so far as to say that it is not a kids movie but a movie more geared towards adult audiences. In both my viewings of this film, some kids were talking loudly and clearly bored. It’s not a film, that is just filled with colours dancing around without any substance, à la Minions or Penguins. It challenges audiences to think and remember things from their past and teaches difficult psychological concepts in very easily understandable ways. This could be good or bad for people, depending on what the viewer is hoping for in a film.

Early designs of Disgust.

Sitting at 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, some critics are calling Inside Out the greatest Pixar film to have ever been made. Though I wouldn’t go that far until after a few years and several repeated viewings, I will say that Inside Out is thought-provoking, funny, mature and genius in almost everything it sets out to do. It easily jumps up to the ranks of Toy Story in terms of originality and teaching on the process of growing up. In fact, other than Toy Story 3 and Wreck-It Ralph, this film is easily the best animated film I have watched in the last 10 years. Literally. The last animated film that can even come close to these 3 is ‘The Incredibles’ in 2004. In fact, I can’t remember the last film that made me tear up as much as I did in this one. It would therefore be a tragedy if films like this are just brushed off by some audiences as ‘boring’ while generic films like Frozen or Despicable Me are remembered.

I’ll do a quick review before the spoiler section. The story this film offers is a very generic Pixar one which involves 2 characters going on a journey. But the significance of what it has to say coupled with how it is said is quite special. Yes, there are very minor plot holes, but that is because Pixar is focused on teaching about the mind rather than a perfect plot. There are certain things you would come to expect from a Pixar film. Good graphics, an interesting premise, a beautiful lesson and great characters. Inside Out gives us all of this and more. The graphics in this film is absolutely gorgeous. I love how the emotions are designed to have little pixels of sorts floating around them. I also love that they used colour as symbols for emotions, having Riley (the little girl) start out wearing colourful clothing and then moving on to blander and blander clothing. Even so far as to have a scene in which she wears a black jacket zipped up to cover up a colourful shirt.

It was also interesting to see the leader
in each of the other characters' heads.

The characters are also great and the voice acting is absolutely phenomenal. Everyone in the cast, including the side characters, were excellent in their voice acting and this is due to the strong casting choices for each emotion. Amy Poehlar as Joy, especially, could very easily have been an annoying character as she was supposed to portray the personification of happiness. But Pixar has brilliantly made Joy into an optimistic character who still has doubts and things to learn rather than a character that is happy all the time. I also really liked that the characters did not simply personify emotions but had their own individual characteristics and intentions that led them to act in certain ways. For example, Fear is the overly-cautious character who thinks of all possible dangers that could occur to Riley and he is tasked with her protection and therefore comes off as fearful. That, in my opinion, is a genius touch by Pixar and makes it easy for us to relate with the emotions.

The brilliant voice cast of Inside Out.

I can’t really say much else without giving away the film, so I’ll end the non-spoiler section with this. Since its first full length film in 1995, Pixar has been the most creative animated film story-tellers in the world. Every one of their films summaries gives one a ‘why didn’t I think of that’ moment. But after films like Cars 2, Monsters University and Brave, I had pretty much given up on expecting anything good and new from Pixar. But this film has reinvigorated my love for Pixar. Inside Out is one of the cleverest films I have seen in recent times. I don’t remember the last time I walked out of a non-historic and non-documentary film feeling smarter and educated. There are little subtle jokes that are so clever, my favourite being the ‘Facts and Opinions’ joke. I can easily see psychology students in the future watching this film as part of their syllables. I cannot recommend this film more highly. Though, due to the relatively normal story and generic ‘two characters going on a journey’ Pixar film format, I have to keep my ratings a little lower than my actual feelings for the film. Kingsman is an extremely good film and these two films are so different that it is difficult to compare them, but in my opinion, Inside Out is the best film of the year so far.

Animated Movie Rating: 10/10

For Kids: 5/10

After Credits Movie Rating: 8.5/10

[Warning: Spoilers Ahead] [Spoilers also for Toy Story 3, Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen and Big Hero 6]

I just have one thing that I have to talk about in this spoiler section. Bing Bong. I have a theory about Bing Bong. I think that Bing Bong was designed to look like a potential villain to the audience. Pixar knew that audiences today are used to a pink, seemingly harmless character, like Lots-O-Huggin Bear (Toy Story 3) and King Candy (Wreck-It Ralph), being the main antagonist. We are also so used to the plot-twist villain, like in Frozen and Big Hero 6 (if you can consider that a twist), that we’ve come to expect it. With Bing Bong hardly appearing in any of the film’s marketing and our first time meeting him was when he was stealing memories, everything seemed to point to him being a potential villain. All he needed was a motive. And when his wagon was thrown into the pit and he said, “Riley can’t be ready to forget me yet,” I instantly thought, as I did when Hans said he had 13 older brothers in Frozen, “Ah, there is the motive.” Then when Joy gives Bing Bong the core memories in the dream sequence and he looked at them, the music that played was a bass-y one, which we associate so much with villains. We wait and wait for the turn and it doesn’t come. Instead, what comes is such a meaningful moment. Bing Bong, who throughout the film feared being forgotten, and was desperately trying to get Riley to remember him by jumping in front of the dream camera, faced his greatest fear because of how much he cared about Riley. It carried so much significance in my opinion. First of all was what I just mentioned. It also signified the departure from innocence we go through as we grow up. Bing Bong represented Riley’s childhood and the things she could not let go of in Minnesota. But these things will eventually have to give way. This later gets hammered in even more in the even more emotional scene of Riley expressing out the sadness in her that she is asked to let go of all these things that made her the person she is. Also, and this may be something that only applies to me, but the idea of a character being forgotten is devastating. I can handle the death of a character, because the character’s ultimate sacrifice will always be remembered. But Bing Bong didn’t just die, he was completely erased from Riley’s memories. That, to me, is so much sadder than when BayMax died for 5 minutes. So I liked that Bing Bong didn’t become a villain. And I liked that Pixar pretty much got us to think that he was so that it becomes so much more emotional when he sacrifices himself. This film is far too smart to end up having a moustache-twirling villain in it. That is, perhaps, why some people, especially kids, found it boring. But to me, a film that can pull that off with the skill of Pixar, should be given high praise.