Inside Out (2015)

There was a joke going around the Internet a few days ago that Pixar began its career by asking, “What if toys had feelings?” before turning to bugs, cars, and fish. Now, the punchline claims, Pixar is turning their gaze inward to ask, “What if emotions had feelings?” Every good joke, of course, has a grain of truth to it, and the fact of the matter is that Pixar has always been rather good at probing the emotional depth of the quotidian, and going meta is an inevitable move. What’s also inevitable is that writer/director Pete Docter (of Up and Monsters Inc. fame) has done a first-rate job of it.

When Riley turns eleven and her family moves from Minnesota to San Francisco, the emotions in her head go along for the ride too. At the helm is Riley’s dominant emotion Joy (Amy Poehler), in charge of regulating Riley’s mood and creating her “core memories.” Also manning the buttons are Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), and Disgust (Mindy Kaling), but it’s Sadness (Phyllis Smith) who seems to be influencing Riley more than Joy would like, leading the emotions into disagreement as Riley begins a new life on the West Coast.

Let’s get the preliminary advisory out of the way – yes, I cried. It didn’t seem like I would, for the longest time in the film, which was not to Inside Out’s detriment at all, but then that trademark Pixar sucker punch arrives right at the climax, and blimey. If the film doesn’t strike that chord with you, I worry for the state of your emotions; honestly I do. It’s interesting that this has become the benchmark of success for me in evaluating a Pixar film, and I suppose it’s due to the apparent distinction between “kid’s movie” and “proper film” that I notice (but reject out of hand) the older I get. Take, for example, the smattering of trailers presented before my showing of Inside Out – Minions, Hotel Transylvania 2, Shaun the Sheep, Pan, and Peanuts. Aside from my Charles Schulz nostalgia, I didn’t feel anything but boredom; there is a caliber of storytelling that Pixar films more often than not inhabit, stories told without room for cynicism or cheap gimmicks.

One senses, for instance, that a great deal of thought has gone into Inside Out, with its surprisingly nimble adaptation of how our emotions and memories operate within our own headspace. Though there is little by way of scientific precision in the film, there is a great deal of “truthiness” to the proceedings, as when the film offers an imaginative explanation for why we forget some things but spontaneously recall others. I almost wonder if Inside Out, by deftly portraying certain truths about our interiorities, will help young viewers understand those things about themselves that we adults have already had to learn for ourselves. (For one, the film acknowledges the way that our dreams are reconstructed from our memories – what Freud called “day residues.”) We may not have emotional sprites living in our brains, though we might be better off if we did.

While we’re on the subject of the emotions, it must be said that Amy Poehler is perhaps the best cast of any Pixar protagonist. While the Pixar casting department hasn’t really made any significant bumbles, Poehler is downright inspired as the embodiment of Joy. A kind of manic pixie Leslie Knope, Joy’s relentless enthusiasm is matched perfectly with Poehler’s breathless whimsy and at times infuriating cheeriness. It’s impossible to imagine another voice that would have worked quite so well, but she’s also complimented by a surprising turn by Phyllis Smith as Sadness. Smith turns in a nicely understated performance, playing up not deep sorrow but the exhaustion and defeat that comes with despair. Honestly, the voice cast is all around very strong, but it’s worth noting that the film succeeds largely on the chemistry between Joy and Sadness.

It’s a wonderful relationship, one that doesn’t pander to the simple good-guy/bad-guy narrative to which a lesser film studio might have resorted (heavens, could you imagine Jack Black voicing Disgust, with all the inevitable flatulence jokes that would have accompanied him?). Instead, Docter gives us something much more interesting, a movie about a relationship rather than a movie with an antagonism. There are no bad guys here because it’s all about Riley, about the complex and competing emotions within us and how we navigate our own psychological terrain. It’s surprisingly smart, a kind of “Disney’s Inception” in a way that shows off none of its brilliance because it’s too busy working to get you to feel. And on that account, Inside Out succeeds, one of the more moving entries in the Pixar canon and indeed the film community at large within recent memory.

Inside Out is rated PG for “mild thematic elements and some action.” Do with that what you will – aside from a scary clown and an entirely inoffensive joke about looming puberty, I can’t think of anything really objectionable in this movie. The theater of surprisingly well-behaved kids seemed to agree with me.

Bonus review! As always, Pixar has preceded their main feature with a short that is both whimsical and romantic. Lava is the story, narrated in Hawaiian ballad style, of a lovesick yet lonely volcano who turns his envy of happy dolphin couples into a wistful song of romance. Though not long on story, Lava manages to do that Pixar feat of distilling a host of emotions into one poignant moment that made this grown man realize, “Wait, I’m getting misty-eyed over a volcano?” Sung by Kuana Torres Kahele, Lava is beautiful and powerful and a delightful surprise to those of us who genuinely didn’t know what Pixar would have on tap before Inside Out.