Inside Out - adorable personified
Kiki on 08/31/2015
This film is terrible, no-good kiddie tosh. It’s…okay, I couldn’t keep that up for long and that is because this film is charming as hell, seriously. Watch it now, today. Take your children, your nieces, your nephews. Take you teenage relatives, take your siblings, take your parents, and your next door neighbour. There really is something for everyone.
Inside Out is the story of Riley, a young girl who moves across the country when her dad gets a new job. This is something that most people can relate to on some level. However Riley isn’t the star of the show. Riley’s five dominant emotions (Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear and Anger) want to help her deal with this change.
First things first, let’s talk about Riley’s emotions voice actors. Ermahgerd, perfect casting right here. Amy Poehler as Joy is amazing! She brims with lightness and happiness. Phyllis Smith as Sadness is a wonderful counterpoint – depressing as hell but in such an amusing way that you can still enjoy Joy’s reactions to her. Mindy Kaling as Disgust, Bill Hader as Fear and Lewis Black as Anger round out the rest and each of them, though they are strictly supporting roles, really round out the story and the associated feelings. I mean, I am fairly sure that the voice of Disgust in my head actually is Mindy Kaling anyway, so this film spoke to me on a certain level.
Two things totally won me over during the course of the film, taking this review from ‘alright’ to ‘it’s brilliant, you should see this’.
1.The bit when they fall into long term memory and they meet the little helper guys. The little guys keep memories ordered, taking them away when you don’t need them anymore or haven’t looked at them in a while. At one point they find an old memory of a catchy (read: annoying) chewing gum TV advert and before you know what they’re doing they’ve sent it up there and you are there singing along and DAMMIT, I get how it all works now! This must happen a lot with my little helper guys.
2.Where they zoom into the mind of the cat on the step, and the ‘calm’ emotion cat just strolls over the controlling console, causing the real cat to suddenly really freak out all over the steps. If you have a cat, I don’t need to explain this to you. If you don’t then you have probably already forgotten this bit.
Like I said, this film is incredibly charming,
The whole film is such an excellent message for everyone – kids and adults and alike. Sadness is a totally valid and normal thing to feel when you’re in a new and scary situation, and letting that happen can only be a healthy thing.
Probably my favourite thing about this film is that I am still thinking about it three days later. I look at someone (ok, my cat) and wonder which their dominant emotions are. I wonder how they might react to things (ok, definitely my cat) and how they could be controlled by a tinyyyyy little console in their minds. I like to think it’s less of a film and more of a documentary.