Pixar’s latest delivers sophisticated take on psychological turmoil inside 11-year-old’s head

Inside Out

Starring the voices of Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith and Lewis Black

Grant Park, Kildonan Place, McGillivray, Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne.

G

95 minutes

4 stars out of five

 

 

 

INSIDE Out is not the first movie to anthropomorphize the inner workings of a human being. That distinction may actually belong to the climactic segment (pun intended) of Woody Allen’s 1972 comedy Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask, a prolonged sketch depicting what goes on when people, you know… do it.

Coming from Pixar, Inside Out has, by necessity, a more child-friendly premise. But that doesn’t mean the film doesn’t boast riches of complexity and nuance, well beyond Allen’s burlesque. 

For something destined to be consumed as another G-rated summer diversion, this is a film of dazzling ambition.

It largely takes place inside the brain of 11-year-old Riley (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias). She’s a happy kid, mostly. As we can see from the film’s fanciful depiction of her inner mind, she has a healthy mix of emotions, including frazzled flibbertigibbet Fear (Bill Hader), the fussy-haughty Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and the literal hot-head Anger (Lewis Black, naturally).

It’s clear that for much of Riley’s life, the elfin Joy (an exuberant Amy Poehler) has been in the emotional driver’s seat. But when Riley’s parents move from Minnesota to San Francisco for dad’s work, Joy finds herself struggling to contain the escalating power of Sadness (Phyllis Smith), a gal whose glasses, turtleneck and overall demeanour suggest Scooby-Doo’s Velma Dinkley enduring mittelschmerz.

The coin of the realm for this bunch are memories, here represented by glassy spheres, each coloured according to the dominant emotion attending the memory. When Joy tries to stop Sadness from changing the colours of Riley’s happy core memories, both are sucked from Riley’s control centre, leaving Fear, Disgust and Anger left to try to steer Riley through her crisis. In the hinterlands of Riley’s brain, Joy and Sadness have to work together to find their way back into Riley’s emotional palette, as succinct a metaphor for battling depression as you could ask.

In his previous Pixar film Up, director Pete Docter demonstrated a gift for creating comic images with weirdly profound metaphoric significance. (Remember the elderly Carl Frederickson doggedly dragging his semi-aloft house behind him — a sublime illustration of a character who literally can’t let go of his past.)

Docter, co-directing with Ronaldo Del Carmen, actually ups the ante here within this film’s candy-coloured mindscapes. On a kids’ level, the film delivers a simple enough problem, as Joy and Sadness have to get home before Riley does something desperate. The terrain includes dreams, fantasy (which looks like a movie studio) and a pit where old, irrelevant memories — including phone numbers — are dumped.

On a deeper level, the story delivers a sophisticated view of emotions. One must particularly respect the portrayal of Sadness, not as a negative or bad character but as a necessary member of the emotional team, with an important function to fulfil. 

Voiced with a tender comedic touch by Smith (best known as the matronly drone Phyllis on TV’s The Office), Sadness isn’t just a sympathetic character, she’s an effective repudiation of a dominant feel-good culture that would love to see her medicated out of existence.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

 

Other voices

 

Inside Out is an absolute delight — funny and charming, fast-moving and full of surprises. It is also a defense of sorrow, an argument for the necessity of melancholy dressed in the bright colors of entertainment.

— A.O. Scott, New York Times

 

Inside Out movingly but casually plays with our emotions, like a baby walking her fingers across a parent’s face; it leaves you changed, entertained, nostalgic, dazzled.

— Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times

 

It works for adults and children and, in fact, its most receptive audience could well be parents who are trying to figure out their kids.

 

— Chris Hewitt, St. Paul Pioneer Press

 

Only Pixar could turn a metaphor into a heart-tugging story about preteen growing pains. Absolutely brilliant.

— Rafer Guzman, Newsday

 

Pixar’s 15th feature proves to be the greatest idea the toon studio has ever had… promises to forever change the way people think about the way people think, delivering creative fireworks grounded by a wonderfully relatable family story.

 

— Peter Debruge, Variety

Inside Out

Starring the voices of Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith and Lewis Black

Grant Park, Kildonan Place, McGillivray, Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne.

G

95 minutes

4 stars out of five

 

 

 

INSIDE Out is not the first movie to anthropomorphize the inner workings of a human being. That distinction may actually belong to the climactic segment (pun intended) of Woody Allen’s 1972 comedy Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask, a prolonged sketch depicting what goes on when people, you know… do it.

Coming from Pixar, Inside Out has, by necessity, a more child-friendly premise. But that doesn’t mean the film doesn’t boast riches of complexity and nuance, well beyond Allen’s burlesque.

For something destined to be consumed as another G-rated summer diversion, this is a film of dazzling ambition.

It largely takes place inside the brain of 11-year-old Riley (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias). She’s a happy kid, mostly. As we can see from the film’s fanciful depiction of her inner mind, she has a healthy mix of emotions, including frazzled flibbertigibbet Fear (Bill Hader), the fussy-haughty Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and the literal hot-head Anger (Lewis Black, naturally).

It’s clear that for much of Riley’s life, the elfin Joy (an exuberant Amy Poehler) has been in the emotional driver’s seat. But when Riley’s parents move from Minnesota to San Francisco for dad’s work, Joy finds herself struggling to contain the escalating power of Sadness (Phyllis Smith), a gal whose glasses, turtleneck and overall demeanour suggest Scooby-Doo’s Velma Dinkley enduring mittelschmerz.

The coin of the realm for this bunch are memories, here represented by glassy spheres, each coloured according to the dominant emotion attending the memory. When Joy tries to stop Sadness from changing the colours of Riley’s happy core memories, both are sucked from Riley’s control centre, leaving Fear, Disgust and Anger left to try to steer Riley through her crisis. In the hinterlands of Riley’s brain, Joy and Sadness have to work together to find their way back into Riley’s emotional palette, as succinct a metaphor for battling depression as you could ask.

In his previous Pixar film Up, director Pete Docter demonstrated a gift for creating comic images with weirdly profound metaphoric significance. (Remember the elderly Carl Frederickson doggedly dragging his semi-aloft house behind him — a sublime illustration of a character who literally can’t let go of his past.)

Docter, co-directing with Ronaldo Del Carmen, actually ups the ante here within this film’s candy-coloured mindscapes. On a kids’ level, the film delivers a simple enough problem, as Joy and Sadness have to get home before Riley does something desperate. The terrain includes dreams, fantasy (which looks like a movie studio) and a pit where old, irrelevant memories — including phone numbers — are dumped.

On a deeper level, the story delivers a sophisticated view of emotions. One must particularly respect the portrayal of Sadness, not as a negative or bad character but as a necessary member of the emotional team, with an important function to fulfil.

Voiced with a tender comedic touch by Smith (best known as the matronly drone Phyllis on TV’s The Office), Sadness isn’t just a sympathetic character, she’s an effective repudiation of a dominant feel-good culture that would love to see her medicated out of existence.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

 

Other voices

 

Inside Out is an absolute delight — funny and charming, fast-moving and full of surprises. It is also a defense of sorrow, an argument for the necessity of melancholy dressed in the bright colors of entertainment.

— A.O. Scott, New York Times

 

Inside Out movingly but casually plays with our emotions, like a baby walking her fingers across a parent’s face; it leaves you changed, entertained, nostalgic, dazzled.

— Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times

 

It works for adults and children and, in fact, its most receptive audience could well be parents who are trying to figure out their kids.

 

— Chris Hewitt, St. Paul Pioneer Press

 

Only Pixar could turn a metaphor into a heart-tugging story about preteen growing pains. Absolutely brilliant.

— Rafer Guzman, Newsday

 

Pixar’s 15th feature proves to be the greatest idea the toon studio has ever had… promises to forever change the way people think about the way people think, delivering creative fireworks grounded by a wonderfully relatable family story.

 

— Peter Debruge, Variety

 

 

Inside Out

Starring the voices of Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith and Lewis Black

Grant Park, Kildonan Place, McGillivray, Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne.

G

95 minutes

4 stars out of five

 

 

 

INSIDE Out is not the first movie to anthropomorphize the inner workings of a human being. That distinction may actually belong to the climactic segment (pun intended) of Woody Allen’s 1972 comedy Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask, a prolonged sketch depicting what goes on when people, you know… do it.

Coming from Pixar, Inside Out has, by necessity, a more child-friendly premise. But that doesn’t mean the film doesn’t boast riches of complexity and nuance, well beyond Allen’s burlesque.

For something destined to be consumed as another G-rated summer diversion, this is a film of dazzling ambition.

It largely takes place inside the brain of 11-year-old Riley (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias). She’s a happy kid, mostly. As we can see from the film’s fanciful depiction of her inner mind, she has a healthy mix of emotions, including frazzled flibbertigibbet Fear (Bill Hader), the fussy-haughty Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and the literal hot-head Anger (Lewis Black, naturally).

It’s clear that for much of Riley’s life, the elfin Joy (an exuberant Amy Poehler) has been in the emotional driver’s seat. But when Riley’s parents move from Minnesota to San Francisco for dad’s work, Joy finds herself struggling to contain the escalating power of Sadness (Phyllis Smith), a gal whose glasses, turtleneck and overall demeanour suggest Scooby-Doo’s Velma Dinkley enduring mittelschmerz.

The coin of the realm for this bunch are memories, here represented by glassy spheres, each coloured according to the dominant emotion attending the memory. When Joy tries to stop Sadness from changing the colours of Riley’s happy core memories, both are sucked from Riley’s control centre, leaving Fear, Disgust and Anger left to try to steer Riley through her crisis. In the hinterlands of Riley’s brain, Joy and Sadness have to work together to find their way back into Riley’s emotional palette, as succinct a metaphor for battling depression as you could ask.

In his previous Pixar film Up, director Pete Docter demonstrated a gift for creating comic images with weirdly profound metaphoric significance. (Remember the elderly Carl Frederickson doggedly dragging his semi-aloft house behind him — a sublime illustration of a character who literally can’t let go of his past.)

Docter, co-directing with Ronaldo Del Carmen, actually ups the ante here within this film’s candy-coloured mindscapes. On a kids’ level, the film delivers a simple enough problem, as Joy and Sadness have to get home before Riley does something desperate. The terrain includes dreams, fantasy (which looks like a movie studio) and a pit where old, irrelevant memories — including phone numbers — are dumped.

On a deeper level, the story delivers a sophisticated view of emotions. One must particularly respect the portrayal of Sadness, not as a negative or bad character but as a necessary member of the emotional team, with an important function to fulfil.

Voiced with a tender comedic touch by Smith (best known as the matronly drone Phyllis on TV’s The Office), Sadness isn’t just a sympathetic character, she’s an effective repudiation of a dominant feel-good culture that would love to see her medicated out of existence.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

 

Other voices

 

Inside Out is an absolute delight — funny and charming, fast-moving and full of surprises. It is also a defense of sorrow, an argument for the necessity of melancholy dressed in the bright colors of entertainment.

— A.O. Scott, New York Times

 

Inside Out movingly but casually plays with our emotions, like a baby walking her fingers across a parent’s face; it leaves you changed, entertained, nostalgic, dazzled.

— Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times

 

It works for adults and children and, in fact, its most receptive audience could well be parents who are trying to figure out their kids.

 

— Chris Hewitt, St. Paul Pioneer Press

 

Only Pixar could turn a metaphor into a heart-tugging story about preteen growing pains. Absolutely brilliant.

— Rafer Guzman, Newsday

 

Pixar’s 15th feature proves to be the greatest idea the toon studio has ever had… promises to forever change the way people think about the way people think, delivering creative fireworks grounded by a wonderfully relatable family story.

 

— Peter Debruge, Variety