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After Toy Story 3 in 2010, the consistency of Pixar’s output went all sorts of strange. Not that every single movie prior to 2010 was a gold star, hey Cars, but the quality was remarkably high, and the few sequels found ways to expand the themes and emotions of its original in profound ways. Then we got the uneven Brave, slight but fun Monster’s University, and the atrocious Cars 2 (not in that order), but the old Pixar magic came roaring back in Inside Out.
Pixar is best when it focuses its immense resources on highly imaginative, inventive stories that take simple concepts and explore them through characters instead of strict narratives. Think of the ways it took on the yearning to create (Ratatouille), aging (the Toy Story franchise), the power of laughter and fear (Monster’s, Inc.), and here it takes on memory, emotions, depression, and what’s going on inside of our minds. To have this film tell it, there’s five central big emotions which pilot your system, with one typically being the driver.
That main emotion here is Joy (Amy Poehler), who demands control of the board at any and all moments, practically bullying Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), and Disgust (Mindy Kaling) into being second fiddle. The oppressiveness of forced joy will be a major theme in this film, viewing happiness as the end-all be-all at the expense of the full-range of emotions is inherently limiting. I loved Inside Out for simply stating that Sadness was a necessary emotion to achieve full maturity and live a full life. There’s a fairly courageous argument to make in a culture that demands positivity and forebodes darker feelings.
This makes Inside Out sound like a serious or heady trip, which I suppose it is at various points, but it is also an absolute blast to watch. The various glimpses into other people’s minds revealed that while the construction was vaguely similar, it wasn’t the same. Variation was clearly present, and the joke about the cat’s brain was a nice bit of relief after so emotional a trip.
The colors are vibrant, and the absence of them as the central character slowly falls into a depressive state is subtly done. This is one of the better filmic representations of encroaching depression I have ever seen, with the long-term parts of the personality draining and crumbling away. Or the ways in which it looks at nostalgic memories, which are tinged with happiness and ache in equal measure, or how various remembrances are complicated by disparate feelings tugging at them. Inside Out is a smart movie for adults, and a very engaging and funny one for kids, distilling complicated concepts to more easily manageable bits and pieces.
Then there’s just the series of smart jokes on display. There’s a literal Train of Thought that gets derailed, a movie studio which produces films and comes complete with a reality distortion filter, and a gated up subconscious that houses various fears at rest. Of course, this wouldn’t be a Pixar movie if it didn’t introduce a character that we grow emotionally attached to, only for something bad to happen to them. Here, that character is Bing Bong, a castoff of an imaginary friend, running around, long-forgotten.
When Joy and Sadness get stranded away from the central control room, Bing Bong will be their guide back to headquarters. He’s lovable, a cotton candied body with an elephant head, and Pepto-Bismol pink. His observance after Facts and Opinions boxes get knocked over that they mingle all the time produced a hearty chuckle from me. And when he and Joy eventually get stuck in the mental abyss where older memories go to die, his eventually sacrifice left me an absolute wreck. It wasn’t just Richard Kind’s perfect vocal performance that made him so endearing, but what his symbolic heft represented – the parts of childhood we let/must let die in order to grow up. His nobility and self-sacrifice in the moment is wrenching, and his final words delivered with kindness and thoughtfulness.
Everything works here, and after a series of films that felt like Pixar had lost their way, or acquiesced to the worst impulses of its parent company, Inside Out is a welcome triumph. It may not be neat and tidy a ride, but neither is growing up. Inside Out plays like a symphony of confusion and mixed up emotions, reminding us that every feeling is validated, and that this monopolization of positivity isn’t a sustainable goal. Life will happen, and twinges of sadness, fear, disgust, and anger are inevitable. We are multitudes, and that is one of the definitive, unifying experiences of life.
