"You can't focus on what's going wrong. There's always a way to turn things around!"
- Joy (voice of Amy Poehler), Inside Out
Pixar has the welcome reputation of not just being one of the best animation studios there is, but also being the best storytellers of recent history. This can be attributed to their remarkable processes at starting a movie with a basic idea, forming that idea into a general storyboard reel and then picking out what works and dumping what does not. More often than not, the movies we see are not the ones that Pixar started out making. Although they had earned the critical acclaim few receive or deserve, Pixar had begun to show chinks in the armor: the universal success of Toy Story 3 had not touched Cars 2 (which many consider the worst Pixar movie ever made), Brave had public directorial disputes (despite winning the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature) and Monsters University, Pixar’s first prequel, had multiple people questioning its place in canon as well as its necessity for existence. As a result, Pixar announced in 2013 that for the first time since 2005, 2014 would be a year without one of their films.
While their presence was certainly missed, it was an opportunity for other animated films to a get a longer shot in the spotlight: triumphs like the Oscar-winning Big Hero 6, The LEGO Movie and How to Train Your Dragon 2 and misfires like Mr. Peabody & Sherman, Rio 2 and Penguins of Madagascar. At the same time, Pixar had pushed its two newest films into 2015. The first to come out that year was unlike any other Pixar film before featuring a totally new environment: the mind of an 11-year-old girl and the weird and wacky emotions that live there.
The emotions of Joy (voice of Amy Poehler), Sadness (voice of Phyllis Smith), Fear (voice of Bill Hader), Disgust (voice of Mindy Kaling) and Anger (voice of Lewis Black) live inside the “Headquarters” of young Riley who is moving with her parents (voices of Kyle MacLachlan and Diane Lane) from snowy Minnesota to the far-off city of San Francisco. In “Headquarters”, Joy is the emotion in charge and the others follow suit. Nobody likes feeling sad, so Joy tries to keep Sadness out of reach of the mind controls as possible. An accident occurs which throws Joy and Sadness to the farthest reaches of Riley’s mind, leaving Fear, Disgust and Anger to handle damage control to Riley’s personality as she tries to adjust to her new home. Along the way, Joy and Sadness have to learn to co-exist with each other if they ever want to get back where they belong.
Pixar has become infamous for their tearjerker heartbreaking sequences. From “When She Loved Me” in Toy Story 2 to the furnace scene in Toy Story 3 (eleven years in between), no other studio has been notable for their emotional scenes in their filmography; a fact that the first teaser for Inside Out is proud to exploit. Inside Out didn't make me cry, but it's enough for one of the four detractors of the movie on Rotten Tomatoes to keep it from reaching 100%. The point the movie tries to make is that sometimes we have to embrace sadness as much as joy. As "South Park" pointed out once (brilliantly). Speaking of "South Park", there is an Imaginationland in this film, but markedly different than the one on the show (and arguably less awesome). One character, Riley's former imaginary friend Bing Bong (voice of Richard Kind) has a particularly poignant ending that was said to bring the voice actor himself to tears.
For my money, this is the best Pixar film since Toy Story 3. A perfect match between storytelling, voice acting, look and creativity. Never Fear, Pixar has recaptured their excelling spirit, far from the Disgust of Cars 2, and is sure to be on to brighter days. Don't be Sad because this review is over, be Joyful and see Inside Out.
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