Inside Out Review: Pixar’s Best Idea Yet

After young Riley is uprooted from her Midwest life and moved to San Francisco, her emotions – Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness – conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house and school.

Inside Out is being toted as the greatest thing Pixar has ever made. Well… They might be on to something. The greatest thing about this movie is that every human being can relate to this film. The entire purpose of the film is to look at emotions. Everyone has emotions, and Pixar came up with a comical way to characterize them while tackling real-life issues.

Joy (Amy Poehler) is the head-honcho of the 5 emotions, which makes sense because everyone wants to be happy. She overseas all of the actions by her cohorts: Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), and Sadness (Phyllis Smith).

Fear was responsible for keeping Riley safe. When she tried making new friends or wanted to slide down a banister, Fear made the decision on what was appropriate and what wasn’t. Or, he’d just freakout and then ultimately, Joy made the decision.

Anger was the rebellious side of Riley. If she snapped at her dad or made a smart aleck remark or saw something as unfair? Anger could decide whether she’d yell, scream, act mean, or disobey.

Now the first 3 emotions were represented by men. The last 2, Disgust and Sadness, are represented by women. Disgust was very snooty and hard to agree with, while sadness was aptly titled. Riley’s long-term memory in the film was represented by colored orbs, which were created every time a significant moment took place. The color of the orb coincided with the emotion felt. The 5 emotions were headquartered behind her eyes in a capsule like area with hand controls, windows, and a view of a vast area that looked like a maze (the vast area is her long-term memory and from above, you can see the zig-zag directions of the maze represent the wrinkles in the brain).

I can see the success of this film being mountainous. As already stated, everyone will relate to this film because everyone feels emotions. Riley experiences everything from her infant years up to high school. Kids will relate directly and adults will relate because of their memories as children.

One of the bigger moments for all of the emotions (spoiler alert) was when Joy realized the importance of Sadness. The entire film, the other 4 try to keep her from touching the orbs because those are lasting memories and they can change if you touch them. If a yellow orb appears that represents Joy, but if Sadness touches it the orb will change to blue. It’s the realization that Joy can come from sadness that touches the senses and identifies with  the audience.

When Joy haphazardly falls out into the abyss of long-term memory with Sadness, problems arise because she’s not at HQ to man-down any happiness. That causes Riley to feel the other 3 emotions without Joy or Sadness, which is a pretty dull human being.

To say this movie is hilarious is an understatement. So not only is it relatable, but its riddled with great humor from Lewis Black and Mindy Kaling.

Because of the storyline, the humor, and the raw emotions that will come from her memories that will touch the soul, this Pixar perfection gets a rarely seen, 10 out of 10. It’s a film you just have to see. Written and directed by Pete Docter and Ronaldo Del Carmen, you have my guarantee that Inside Out will charm hearts across the world and blow the roof of the Box Office.

-Jon J.