Inside Out Review (Spoilers)

SPOILERS


SPOILERS


SPOILERS


SPOILERS


SPOILERS

Hey Guys!

I'm back with another review. 
In the months after Disney/Pixar's newest movie was announced, I was greatly looking forward to seeing it in theatres. The concept was original, the characters were diverse and the animation was stunning. After finally getting to the theatre to see it, I was not disappointed. It was everything I was expecting and more. I even shed a view tears during the final showdown when Bing Bong made his sacrifice.

This movie is not only enjoyable, but is also a great example of how stress caused by change can trigger an emotional breakdown, especially for young children who are still exploring who they are. In Riley's case, she and her family have to move from Minnesota to San Francisco for her father's new job. The drive getting to their new home is assumed to be fun, with a brief memory showing so, but upon arrival, Riley experiences one disappointment after another. Like any child would, Riley becomes frustrated and upset with her parents. But when her mother thanks her for keeping a brave face and remaining joyful throughout the entire endeavour, Riley promises to stay their "happy girl" during this transition for her father. However, in doing so, Riley bottles up her negative emotions, and thus starts the collapse into an emotional breakdown. The actually breakdown occurs the next day during an incident in class when Riley is overcome by depression due to missing her old life in Minnesota. The literal internal struggle causes Joy, Sadness and the core memories to be sucked up the tube to long term memory. With their absence from the cleverly named headquarters, Riley becomes devoid of a personality and can't feel joy or sadness as an emotion, leaving Anger, Disgust and Fear to run things.

One by one Riley's personality towers crumble into the pit where all faded memories turn to dust and are forgotten. This results in Riley receding into herself and distancing herself from others. She doesn't want to share how she feels with her parents because she wants to stay their "happy girl" and thus has no one to talk to or have comfort her, spiralling her further into the emotional breakdown.

Joy and Sadness travel throughout Riley's head in attempt to get back to headquarters, visiting places such as Imagination Land and Dream Production, and meeting old imaginary friends like Bing Bong. Joy even realizes Sadness's true purpose and how she is helpful to Riley. They eventually make it back to headquarters as Riley is in the process of running away, and Sadness is allowed control of the, well, controls. This finally allows Riley to express what she is truly feeling when she returns home to her parents. With the healing process beginning, Riley's life returns to a normal state but with improvements and growth to her emotions and personality. New core memories are formed, better personality towers are created and Riley returns to her true happy, goofy, hockey loving self.

This movie explores very unique concepts and complex issues in a wonderful way. The casting and performance is brilliant, with stunning animated expressions to match. It explores the importance of the emotion that is sadness, as well as what it's like for a girl to grow up and experience change. It shows that all negative emotions are not as negative as we may believe, and that's a really important thing to understand.
We also get an interesting point of view of how the brain may work involving long term memory, train of thought and how silly commercial jingles can pop into your head at random times. This greatly shows the studio's vast creativity, and persistence as this film took Pixar 5 years to complete. The only remotely negative thing I could say about it is that the basic storyline of two characters, who previously were not fond of each other, bonding during a great adventure has been done a lot by Pixar, and even though this movie has a strong original idea overall, it still feels familiar.

However, that does not take away from the stunning masterpiece that is Inside Out. I highly recommend seeing this movie for it's originality, creativity, and incredible exploration of the mind in a way only Pixar can.


Let me know what your thoughts were and how you rated the movie here.

Enjoy!