Inside Out

It is without doubt that on any given day you have looked at someone and thought 'what's going on inside their head'? I too have thought such a thing, and I even thought that about my own head and have gotten no closer to finding an answer. Inside Out looks into the mind of young child, Riley (Kaityln Dias), who quite recently has moved from Minnesota to San Francisco leaving her friends, hockey team and life behind whilst inside her mind both Joy (Amy Poehler) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) are sucked out of the main central complex leaving Riley grumpy and depressed.

Inside Out looks at all of Riley's emotions - fear, joy, sadness, anger, disgust - in a touching, heartbreaking way that only Pixar could possible achieve as, like so many of Pixar's greatest films, Inside Out is a very moving film (pretty sure I heard various people stifling sobs) because it is a very universal story. It's a film that states that sadness is crucial and perhaps even the most important of emotions as it is those dark times when the trials and tribulations of life become too much that define who we are as a person, they help us grow and shape how we will live our lives.  It's our sadness that helps us connect to and also builds stronger relationships with others.

To almost take the emotional weight of our shoulders, and give us some sort of emotional release, the film has humour in the gallons (one highlight was a young boy's brain entering panic mode when a girl talks to him). The animation, as expected, is glorious and the imagination that went into building the mind as some sort of engineering marvel with its many islands of family, hockey and friendship and shelves upon shelves of forgotten memories is simply astounding. The voice acting from the likes of Amy Poehler is great and the family dynamic between all Riley's emotions makes any trip inside her head to be tremendous fun. 

The only slight drawback is that when the film becomes more action heavy it isn't quite as interesting but the film's sheer emotional power and its ability to drag the viewer into the story in a emotional resonant way is a mark of an amazing story and storyteller.

4/5