Inside Out: A Critique

“Take her to the moon for me, okay?” if you have seen Pixar’s 2015 movie release titled Inside Out, then you probably remember bawling your eyes out when Bingbong, one of the supporting characters in the film, said this striking line as he sacrificed himself just to make Riley happy once again. Inside out is a 2015 American 3D computer-animated comedy-drama adventure film directed by UP and Monster Inc’s director Pete Docter. The story follows through Riley’s life and the significant changes happening in it as she grows older. Inside Riley’s head, she is guided by her 5 emotions namely Joy, Disgust, Fear, Anger, and Sadness who each guide her through everyday life. Problems start to arise when she is uprooted from her Midwest life when her father starts a new job in San Francisco. The emotions live in Headquarters, the control center inside Riley’s mind. As Riley and her emotions struggle to adjust to a new life in San Francisco, turmoil ensues in Headquarters. Although Joy, Riley’s main and most important emotion, tries to keep things positive, the emotions conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house, and school. The film has garnered multiple awards in 2016 such as an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and an Academy Award all for the “Best Animated Film” category. You cannot go mistaking this film as truly a great one considering it winning such huge and major awards in one year. The plot alone for the story was unique, imaginative and creative. In the headquarters, there is the main control panel with multiple buttons each with a purpose. There are joysticks that control Riley’s movements, a button for when she needs to sleep, and even one that projects her memories and dreams. This film does a great job in showing how our emotions control and affect so much of our decisions, body movements, and reactions in such a creative and fun way that does not fail to catch the interest of their audience.

Living a happy and great life in a loving home, and surrounded by loving parents, young Riley was contented with her life. The stress of the movie brings Sadness to the forefront. When Joy and Sadness are inadvertently swept into the far reaches of Riley’s mind, the only emotions left in the Headquarters are Anger, Fear, and Disgust. Sadness was evidently the trouble maker even from the very beginning when she almost touched a “happy core memory”, almost making it a “sad core memory”. Joy was the leader of the group who always called the shots. The scriptwriters were very wise in putting two opposing characters together to find solutions to the problem. It gives a twist to the story, making the plot more interesting to the viewers. It leaves them guessing on how such two opposite emotions would be able to cooperate and work for hand in hand to help look for all the missing core memories and bring back Riley to her happy state. While Joy and Sadness were not back in the headquarters, the other three emotions were left with the responsibility for Riley’s mind. This part of the movie seemed the most intriguing. Not only was there one challenge evident, but two challenges that each emotion had to face. It gave so much hype and drama to the plot. The scriptwriters were also wise with leaving the three emotions behind. Without their leader, Joy, to guide them, they brought the laughs as they each tried to take over the control panel. As Joy and Sadness meet Bingbong, Riley’s childhood imaginary friend, he was the character that brought attachment of the audience to the movie. The events occurring got even much more exciting and interesting. It was a great decision to insert Bingbong in the middle of the movie because he portrayed a role that audiences would never forget. He was a sweet and loving character. When he died to save a core memory, I was brought to tears. His role was so important as he showed the true meaning of love. It was the most dramatic scene in the movie. At the ending of the movie, Riley was slowly becoming very distant to her family. Every day she became more and more depressed. As Joy and Sadness finally came to save the day, it became my favorite scene in the film. This part of the story was so important. Her parents saw the pain in her eyes and the tears she shed as she tried coping up with all the drastic changes in her life. When they hugged, a flashback showed all their joyful memories as a family, it gave such huge nostalgia to my very own family. This scene was where the movie was finally able to convey the message of the whole story. The plot of the whole movie was very well written and well thought of. There was only one scene wherein I did not find to be quite necessary to the movie, and it was when Joy lost Sadness throughout the journey for a moment, and then found her eventually. The scene did not really have such significance and I found it as if it was just an added scene to add minutes to the movie. The screen players of Inside Out have done a great job in the characterization of the core emotions. Throughout the movie, these messages are implicitly echoed: the core emotions are trainable; they are constructed in a specific context; they are changeable; they are flexible and playful; they are interchangeable; they are responses to specific conditions in life. No emotion is fixed. Overall, the movie had a great balance of drama, comedy and adventure.

Riley played a big part in the movie as the character that seemed to relate and connect with the audience. From the very start, I could observe how it was a film that was meant to capture the attention of the audience and connect with them. It was not merely a film to entertain, which in my opinion makes it such a great film for it tries to bring out a message to the audience. She was simple and did not think about much when she was young but grew more complicated as she grew older. With the way she threw petty tantrums when she did not get her way, or when was completely devastated when she and her parents move to San Francisco. She may be just a fictional character, but the script writers did a fantastic job keeping her realistic in nature. Riley’s emotions — led by Joy — try to guide her through this difficult, life-changing event. Joy was obviously the character that radiated positivity and happiness. The animators of the film did well in making their movements connect and pattern to each of the character’s distinct personality. You could see Joy skipping and galloping everywhere she went which shows her positive character. Disgust always had her hand on her hip and flipped her hair in every chance she got. Anger stomped his feet everywhere he went. Fear was always shaking with his eyes bulging out, and Sadness was always slumping and moved slowly everywhere she went. Without even having to know the character’s names, the animation of their movements was so well done throughout the movie that it took common sense to determine which character was which. They were all beautifully externalized. The emotions act independently and co-dependently with other emotions. They are easily triggered due to a major change in one’s life. The interactions between emotions are utterly amusing and amazingly constructed. As an animated film, voice actors play a vital role in bringing the characters to life. I was impressed on how each emotion did not just speak normally. They each spoke the way a human would sound like when they possess the emotion. In other words, they were all emotionally in tune. Joy was always speaking in such high tones, even in situations wherein sadness was being an absolute pain by taking over the control panel of Riley’s actions. Sadness, on the other hand, was always very slow placed when trying to get her words out and sounded so down at most times, truly showing that she indeed is the sad emotion.

Inside Out is a very optimistic movie as it shows us to work with our own emotions and regulate and tame them in creative ways that make us re-connected with self and others. If the goal of one’s life is to re-bounce from disconnection and if it is to re-connect with self and others, this movie illustrates this perfectly. I never got tired of watching this movie several times, as it really has left such an impact on how I look at life. It has brought me to realizations. It has left me wondering if this movie is shown at schools. Its ending perfectly brought out such a great message to the audience; “No one can go through life feeling amazing all the time. Without the hard times, how should we know we’re in the good times?” I could just imagine what effects it would have on children and perhaps their parents.

Works Cited:

Tahereh Berati (2015) Inside Out- Reflection! Retrieved 1/29/17 from: https://blog.taherehbarati.com/2015/07/31/inside-out-reflection/ lmdb (2016) Inside Out-Awards. Retrieved 1/29/17 from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2096673/awards

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