The conclusion reached by Inside Out, the new Pixar film directed by Pete Docter, demonstrates a level of emotional intelligence that most movies of all shapes and sizes simply lack. Granted, for a movie that's focused on emotions as its principal subjects, that doesn’t necessarily point to a noteworthy achievement. But since it is playing to, if not targeted towards, children, just witnessing the depths of maturity and confidence in complexity on-display is fairly remarkable. There’s a poetic messiness to Inside Out that’s largely absent even in most movies that similarly aspire to explore our internal workings.
Why can most movies only preach what Docter practices over and over? (He’s previously reached similar success with Monsters Inc. and Up.) It’s a mystery, but one thing’s for sure: Inside Out is, by any measure, a terrific, astute and imaginative piece of moviemaking, one that embraces its genre and target demographic while also fearlessly tackling big questions and ideas.
In concept alone, Inside Out presents itself intriguingly. The movie imagines the internal workings of a 12 year-old girl named Riley; the “headquarters” of her mental space is occupied by a quintet of emotions. Leader of the pack, and arguably the film’s main character, is Joy (Amy Poehler), a sunny, Tinkerbell-like figure desperate to keep Riley happy. She’s offset by Sadness (Phyllis Smith of The Office), who can’t help her compulsion to dampen Riley’s mood.
After a happy, carefree childhood in Minnesota, Riley moves with her family to San Francisco. Along with clever “bear” references and a disagreeably culinary food culture, the Bay Area features the kinds of tight spaces and unkept corners that sharply contrast the suburban midwest. That, along with the fact that Riley is now 12, smells trouble: happiness isn’t going to come so easily anymore. Such a reality leaves her emotions in flux. Joy begins working in overdrive, snagging happy memories left-and-right to keep Riley’s spirits up. She also pushes out Sadness completely: at one point, the blue, stocky embodiment of melancholy is placed in the center of a circle on the floor, instructed not to move outside of its boundaries.
The mix of visual and narrative inventiveness here is immediately reflective of Pixar’s best; particularly, the fantastical tinting of emotional struggle recalls Docter’s wrenching Up. And alongside Poehler’s excitement and Smith’s hilarious Debbie Downer act is a perfectly-cast set of supporting characters. Comedian Lewis Black feels just right as Anger, channeling every stand-up routine he’s ever done; Mindy Kaling plays Disgust, the appearance-obsessed emotion in line with her characters on The Office and The Mindy Project; and the ever-versatile Bill Hader is predictably wonderful as Fear.
Tonally, the movie hits relatively expected beats, but the movie’s cleverness and surprisingly varied sense of humor elevates it above what the aesthetic might otherwise indicate. Richard Kind voices Riley’s long-forgotten imaginary friend Bing Bong, a character who injects a curious and ultimately quite affecting energy into Inside Out’s middle run. The visual creation of Riley’s mind, complete with “worlds” resembling a Super Mario videogame, is deep with details and idiosyncrasies. Even the characters both in and beyond Riley's mind emerge uniquely, despite being broadly drawn to appease a vast demographic, through this unconventional approach to characterization.
But ultimately, Inside Out is as successful as it is because of a stirring emotional intelligence. The movie’s conceit is to delve into the inner-workings of a moody, volatile pre-teen -- to imbue a caricature, or at least mental processes we write off in our own lives, with understanding and complications. It’s an observation of change and growing up from a perspective that’s the very opposite of infantilizing.
The movie’s end takes that idea a step further. Docter’s direction eventually hones in on the dichotomous relationship between Joy and Sadness, or more specifically, on the former’s attempt to convince herself that the latter is totally harmful. What emerges as the “solution” to the plot’s elaborate problem is a rather radical idea: the embracement of sadness, and the reliance on emotional balance. The villainy in the film is less Sadness’ desire to make Riley feel blue, and more Joy’s refusal to let that happen naturally.
In Inside Out, characters learn to own such emotions -- they recognize the beauty of sadness and the limits of joy. The conveyance is antithetical to juvenile; there’s something rather invigorating about the filmic presentation of such an idea. Because rarely in movies do we get such an open-hearted, tender and yet challenging recognition of emotion. Inside Out tells a story about feeling, and in so doing, it teaches us how to feel, too.
Grade: A