Pixar Gets In Your Head (Again)
Pixar Animation Studios has been moving audiences with its films for 20 years, and almost all of the 15 films they've produced tell truly unique stories that reach their viewers in a new way each time. Even Monsters University, an enjoyable film that tells an unremarkable story of how enemies became best friends, finds an interesting angle with its message that some dreams can't be achieved (but you can still find something you love). Inside Out sees Pixar truly swing for the fences with a high concept premise and a message that may be the most delicate, abstract idea the studio has ever built a film around, and it should come as no surprise that the film is one of the studio's greatest successes.
Inside Out tells the story of Riley (Kaitlyn Dias), an 11 year old girl who is uprooted from her idyllic life in Minnesota when her parents (Kyle MacLachlan and Diane Lane) move the family to San Francisco. Though Riley is central to the story, she and her parents are more settings than characters, as the true protagonist of the film is Joy (Amy Poehler), one of the five emotions that run Riley from "Headquarters" as they strive to lead her through a happy life. Joy is joined by Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), and Anger (Lewis Black). The emotions each jockey for control of Riley in a given moment, but Joy is the clear leader, and the one who usually wins the day (though Disgust and Anger rightly take control when a baby Riley is fed broccoli for the first time).
The emotions function fairly well as a team until the unexpected move to California, the first major shift in Riley's life, and one that coincides with Sadness suddenly feeling the urge to take control, and touch the "core memories." According to the film, these important moments in a person's development are the memories that shape a personality, such as Riley's first time playing hockey with her parents. Disaster strikes when the core memories are knocked loose from their central spot in Headquarters, and Joy, Sadness and the cores are sucked into a pneumatic tube used to transport more generic daily memories to their long term storage. Without Joy at the helm and the essential happy memories that shape her, Riley starts to weather her transition to a new school and town with erratic behavior guided by Fear, Anger, and Disgust.
I have to admit that I was a tad disappointed with Inside Out at first because I wasn't completely awed by the world Pixar had created in Riley's mind. There's nothing quite as thrilling here as seeing Carl's house lift off for the first time in Up. But then I realized, I also wasn't questioning or confused by anything on display. Director and co-writer Pete Docter (also the mind behind Up) and his team have crafted a world that is a functioning, visualized version of thinking, feeling, and dreaming, and it all makes complete sense. Wow.
And on top of that, Inside Out is a film that, at its core, is about understanding the role sadness plays in our lives. How it's as essential as any other emotion, and how we would be less whole as individuals without it. That's a difficult concept to build a film around. The years of development and production put into the film are evident, but to my eyes everything is effortlessly realized. It's all abstract, yet entirely tangible and comprehendible.
Walking such a storytelling tightrope is where Pixar delivers its best work, and while that is due in no small part to Docter and his co-writers, Inside Out is yet another of their perfectly cast films. Perhaps no actress working today is better suited to play Joy than Amy Poehler. She brings the upbeat, can-do spirit (and occasional shortsightedness) of Leslie Knope to Joy, creating a character who's constantly sunny and confident, but who coincidentally needs to learn to change as Riley grows up. Phyllis Smith is similarly perfect for Sadness, with her downbeat and slow delivery of lines (think of Rachel Dratch's Debbie Downer from SNL), as well as her confusion regarding her purpose in Riley's life. Lewis Black, Bill Hader, and Mindy Kaling are all well-matched with their roles—Black is particularly good as Anger—and they make a fun, if less crucial, team to watch as they try to guide Riley in Joy's absence. For all of the wonderful actors who voice the characters of Inside Out, the one who steals the film is Richard Kind in a role I will not dare spoil for you here (he hasn't been in any of the film's promotional materials). But I will guarantee he will make you cry.
That ability to make the eyes an audience member of any age well up with tears is part of the Pixar magic that's been missing somewhat from their last few films. The filmmakers know how to reach into their audiences' hearts and minds and touch them in the most simple of ways, but with stories so clever you wonder how no one's managed to make these films before:
Toys that come to life when they're alone. The secret lives of monsters that live in your closet. A family of superheroes.
The concepts are simple, yet their executions are each profound in their own way. Inside Out carries on that grand Pixar tradition of getting to the root of how we think and feel with imaginative and clever storytelling. It's a film all about how we reconcile sadness with a happy life, and how the two can't be mutually exclusive. That's a complex notion delivered with emotional truth by one of the greatest creative teams around. Inside Out is probably the only film you'll see this year that will make you happy to feel so sad, and that's a cinematic gift to the world if there ever was one.
Mini-Review: Attached to Inside Out is Lava, an animated short about a volcano (voiced by Kuana Torres Kahele) who sings about how he wishes for someone to love-ah—get it? Lava, love-ah—as he sees sea creatures swim by in pairs. It's a cute and simple short. As with all Pixar productions, the animation is excellent, and the song is a charming ukulele number in the mold of Iz's rendition of "Over the Rainbow." The film may not stick with you the way Inside Out will, but it's a fine addition to the long line of Pixar shorts shown before their features.