Ladies and Gentlemen, whether you like it or not, the Pixar playlist
Monsters University came out in June 2013, Pixar’s next film didn’t come
out for another 2 years. If Monsters University proved anything, it was that
Pixar needed a break to come up with new original ideas.
That said, this film has been in pre-production since Disney execs gave
Pete Doctor the go-ahead to make another film after the success of Up. This
went through a long process of drafts and rewrites and, much to my elation,
they consulted actual psychologists for this one. This film is about emotional
wellbeing, which is tied to mental health, and we all know what happens when we
try and write a story about mental health without consulting mental health
professionals…
Let’s say no more about that one.
Despite initial concern about it being difficult to market, children
responded well to the test screening and it went on to earn $850m at the box
office. It’s a critically lauded film, with a 98% Rotten Tomatoes rating.
Just for some context, this was the first Pixar film I saw in cinemas as an adult, so
I might be a little biased.
I freaking love this film.
Inside out imagines a world where a human is guided by 5 personified
emotions, Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust. Every day, Riley, our main
character creates memories, those that stick with her and define her
personality are called core memories, and each power a personality island
within the world inside Riley’s head.
But times become tougher, as Riley and her parents move out of their home
in Minnesota to a house in San Francisco. Still, Riley tries to remain positive
as Joy leads the crew in Riley’s head. Sadness is largely kept apart from the
group, with the belief that she can taint memories to make the sad.
During a particularly tough day for Riley, Joy and Sadness are sucked
away from the console. They race to find their way back as without Joy, Riley
can’t be happy and that begins to cause a major shift in her personality. Can
joy and Sadness make it back to HQ before everything goes wrong?
I think the first thing I want to say is, they did a great job making
Riley’s shifts in personality feel natural. It doesn’t feel like her
personality ever does a 180, it’s more like she’s kept a lot of unhappy
feelings towards a difficult situation bottled up inside and it’s beginning to
eat at her. There are obvious parables to mental disorders that arise from this
concept, plenty of people have made jokes about this. But if they want to go
with the concept that this is the case for everyone, they couldn’t go that
route with Riley. You wouldn’t presume Riley had any mental illness if you were
presented her actions without the context of her emotions.
Whilst the idea of having emotions in your head personified is not
exactly new ground, the execution here is incredibly creative. The creative
minds of Pixar did a fantastic job of making the world look, vibrant and alive
but also relevant. Imagination-land looks creative and has a few great visual
gags, I love some of the ideas in the dream factor and even Long-term memory
looks visually creative.
When it comes to the marketability of the film, a lot comes down to the
designs and they are absolutely fantastic. And they’ve got decent voices to
match. Joy could very easily have become irritating, especially as the lead
character but with the voice, design and pairing her up with sadness, who is a
great counter-balance to her they avoid that pitfall. I will say that for
everyone other than Riley, they do look a bit samey.
And the message of this story is one that you don’t see that often. It’s
okay, healthy and natural to be sad sometimes. It’s a good message to send to
young children that may have trouble with healthy emotional expression. And a
few adults too.
I think with the overwhelming number of positives I’ve said about this
film, I have no choice but to place it right at the top of the list.
#1 Inside Out
#2 The Incredibles
#3 Up
#4 Finding Nemo
#5 Toy Story 3
#6 WALL-E
#7 Toy Story 2
#8 Brave
#9 Toy Story
#10 Monsters Inc
#11 Ratatouille
#12 Cars
#13 Monsters University
#14 Cars 2
#15 A Bug’s Life
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