This week for my Do Something Sunday post I’m recommending a trip to the cinema to see Disney Pixar’s new film Inside Out. As today is so wet and miserable it is a great way to spend the afternoon.
On Thursday I was treated to a showing by the lovely Rory of Eat Drink Run Fun in Cineworld. First off I should mention the very cool model of The Thing from the new Fantastic Four film in the lobby. I was already excited to see it but even more so after glimpsing their model.
Before Inside Out starts there is a short from Pixar about a volcano looking for love. The song will be stuck in your head forever; I’m still singing it. The short is five minutes long and I’ll warn you now it has all the feels! I was a wreck after it. It was kind of bizarre but I liked it.
So moving on to the film itself, it is centred around an eleven year old girl named Riley and the inner workings of her brain. Joy is the first emotion that appears in brain headquarters followed by Sadness. Disgust, Fear and Anger then follow. All emotions work together to maintain Riley’s daily life and protect her core memories, although Joy is the main emotion in charge. Riley’s core memories are the building blocks to her personality and from them a number of brain islands are formed such as Family Island, Friend Island, Hockey Island, Imagination Island and Goofball Island. All is well and Joy is happy to play centre stage until Riley’s family relocate to San Francisco and then all of the emotions need to work together to navigate both the move and her new life.
The film is very clever as it portrays a good understanding of how the brain functions and how sometimes feelings and emotions work together and sometimes they are in isolation. To begin with Joy is very dismissive of Sadness; she doesn’t understand her and doesn’t know why she is there. Joy doesn’t see any value in Sadness and doesn’t feel that Riley needs her. I don’t want to give too much of the plot away but Joy and Sadness end up spending a lot of time together and eventually Joy learns the value of Sadness. She learns that it is ok for some of Riley’s memories to be founded on sadness. An example being Riley lost a hockey match and was sad but her parents and friends then comforted her and made her feel happy. Joy learned that both she and Sadness could actually work together. She found the value in Sadness and I think this was a really great insight for any of us, regardless of our age.
I’ll be very honest, the film was good and is definitely worth a watch but I don’t know if I’d see it again. I did find myself getting a teeny bit bored at one stage but I do recommend watching it. There are a few things that I really liked. I liked how the inner brain was designed and explained and I think it might prove particularly useful and informative for children. I liked the memory train and Imagination Island and I loved the animation. The characters look very different but kind of the same to their voiced actors and I thought that was great. I also liked that some of my favourite ladies feature in the film, Amy Poehler (Joy) Mindy Kaling (Disgust) and Phyllis Smith (Sadness).
I’d give the film 3.5 out of 5 but I do recommend it. A word of warning, just when you think you have gotten over the emotions of the poor old volcano, there is a sad scene in the film involving Riley’s forgotten imaginary friend Bing Bong so bring the tissues.
