Inside Out
Directors: Pete Docter and Ronaldo del Carmen
Voiced by: Kaitlyn Dias, Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Bill Hader, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling
Four stars
Inside Out, the latest Pixar punch to the heart, navigates the labyrinth of a young girl's mind in an antic-filled, candy-coloured romp through childhood memory to arrive, finally, gloriously, at epiphany.
By now it’s a familiar Pixar trajectory from wackadoodle to waterworks – we know it’s coming and we know there’s nothing we can do about it. The wave of tender nostalgia is going to crash down and wash us – happy, misty-eyed saps – out to sea, maybe with Nemo and Dora swimming alongside.
Those moments, sentimental and sublime, come in unlikely places: the understanding of a forgotten toy (Toy Story), the astonished realisation of a bitter food critic (Ratatouille), the flashback of a grouchy, old man (Up). The epiphanies are almost invariably about giving in to the natural course of life and time – an acceptance, a letting go.
Part of the magic of Pixar is that, even when set in outer space, its films remain down to earth. What's most striking about Inside Out isn't its inside-the-brain gee-whiz design, but the fact that it is probably Pixar's most directly human story yet – about an 11-year-old girl, growing up.
It’s an event that is observed and subtly manipulated by a gaggle of voices in the head of young Riley: Joy (Amy Poehler), an effervescent, pixie-haired burst of positivity; Sadness (Phyllis Smith), a blue-tinged, bespectacled mope; Anger (Lewis Black), a red block of fury; Fear (Bill Hader), a perpetually nervous squiggle; and Disgust (Mindy Kaling), a snobbish socialite.
From inside the “headquarters” of her head, the quintet have watched Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) compile personality-forming memories, each of which rolls into the HQ like a glowing pinball, to be filed away accordingly in places such as long-term memories or the more central “core memories.”
Things start to go haywire when Riley and her parents (Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan) move from Minnesota – the setting for her idyllic, hockey-playing youth – to a rundown San Francisco town house. Sadness begins creeping into her core memories, jeopardising Joy’s previously unchallenged sunny supremacy.
In trying to prevent this scourge of unhappiness, Joy and Sadness get sucked into the recesses of Riley’s mind, from where they must find a way back through a maze of realms, including Imagination Land and Dream Productions, a nightly movie studio of dreams.
The interior architecture is bright and clever – there is literally a train of thought – but the psychology puns start to drag. Much of the mindscape adventures will surely sail over the heads of younger viewers, while others will eventually tire of the Inception-like trip into the brain (an exception is Bing Bong, an abandoned imaginary friend, played by Richard Kind, who cries candy and seems created to prove how Pixar can make literally anything break your heart).
Better is Riley’s tenderly depicted daily life as she struggles to adjust to a new school and city.
The film, directed by Pete Docter and co-directed by Ronnie Del Carmen, steadily builds in emotional power, aided massively by Michael Giacchino's beautifully soft and sweet score (he also provided the music for Up and Ratatouille).
Inside Out may be about a young girl, but it's really from a parent's perspective – even the inside voices are Riley's guardians, adjusting as she matures out of childhood. As he did with Up, Docter has married a rainbow-coloured palate with a gentle fable, mixing real and fantasy, sometimes awkwardly but always with warmheartedness.
What’s most refreshing about the film is its inversion of the standard prescriptions of big-budget animation – it’s ultimately about the importance of embracing sadness.
This, you may have noticed, isn’t exactly the conventional moral one generally finds at the multiplex. But it’s a fitting lesson to be imparted by Pixar, a master juggler of emotion that has so often moved us with radiant bursts of feeling. Who better to remind us of the value of a good cry?
* AP
