Emotions are the stars of Pixar’s latest 3D animated feature, occupying more screen time than the protagonist inhabited by those feelings. In Inside Out, 11-year-old Riley (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias) sinks into a confusion of roiling, contending emotions. Like millions of adolescents, Riley is pulled one way and yanked in another by sensations she is only beginning to understand.
It wasn’t always that way: Riley was happy in her suburban Minnesota home until her father’s job uprooted the family and brought them to San Francisco. The city at the gateway of Silicon Valley doesn’t come off well in this high-tech extravaganza. For Riley, the sense of darkness and displacement is palpable. And the pizza is topped with broccoli instead of sausage! Yuck!
Until the move, the emotions lodged inside Riley’s mind operated under the relentlessly energetic cheerleading of Joy (“Saturday Night Live’s” Amy Poehler), whose pixie hairdo and untempered enthusiasm brings The Sound of Music’s Julie Andrews to mind. Fortunately, Inside Out is not a musical. Despite Joy’s preeminence, the other emotions all had their roles in forming a full personality for Riley. Each is a wonderful sight gag: Sadness (Phyllis Smith) is overweight, bespectacled and mopey; Disgust (Mindy Kaling) is the eye-rolling, snotty bad girl; Anger (Lewis Black) is a red-faced, narrow-eyed fireplug erupting in spleen; and Fear (Bill Hader) is a cringing, bowtie-wearing dweeb. A little fear prevents accidents; a touch of anger helps get a point across; a dose of disgust keeps toxic people at bay; and a little sadness reminds us that life isn’t all cupcakes.
The problem comes when Riley’s world is turned upside down and the emotional harmony turns cacophonous. Sadness becomes ascendant and Riley, growing despondent, angry and desperate, acts on the bad advice offered by her emotions. Can Joy save the day?
Accompanied by Sadness, Joy undertakes an odyssey inside Riley’s imaginatively visualized, candy-colored consciousness with its French fry forest, cotton candy houses and memories stored in colored balls mounted on the walls of the labyrinth. Dreams are produced on a Hollywood-style sound stage and the subconscious is a dark place leading down into forgotten traumas. On the journey, Joy and Sadness encounter Riley’s forgotten imaginary friend from early childhood, an affable if confused pachyderm called Bing Bong (Richard Kind). He wants to help.
Directors and writers Pete Docter and Ronaldo del Carmen, both of them involved in one of Pixar’s finest productions, Up, have crafted a story of diversity within teamwork and the fundamentals of family. The story is funny and moving, with sympathetic non-human characters and fast, sophisticated pop culture references. Blink and you’ll miss Vertigo and Chinatown. In the ’90s and ’00s, Pixar set the highest standards—not only in animation but in Hollywood as a whole—for smart screenwriting as well as technical innovation. In recent years the studio’s level slipped. Inside Out is a return to form, a tour de force of heart and head, humor and insight into the human condition.
Inside Out
3 and a half stars
Amy Poehler
Lewis Black
Directed by Pete Docter and Ronaldo del Carmen
Rated PG
