We watched Inside Out (2015) recently, and it was damn interesting. Damn interesting, I say. We didn’t have time to see it opening week, but caught it the week after on a Friday night.
The film stars Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling, and Bill Hader as Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Fear, respectively. These are the emotions in all of our heads supposedly in control at various moments in our life. Yes, your main characters are anthropomorphic emotions.
We start at the birth of Riley, a girl from Minnesota. The film introduces us to this little world in our heads as she grows up in Minnesota, but the plot takes off as she and her family move to San Francisco. Riley is older, and living in a new city, away from her friends, and in a new school. At some point, Joy (Poehler) and Fear (Smith) are lost, and the remaining emotions are in charge.
I’ll assume you’ve seen the trailers, know the plot, etc. We all really liked the movie. Extremely age appropriate and entertaining for the kids, though Josh thought the film was “too sad.” What I liked about the film were the multiples of jokes for the adults thrown in. My favorite running gag was Anger regularly reading newspapers with headlines about what’s happening with Riley, such as “First Day of School” and “No Dessert.”
Most of the film’s drama comes from this push-pull battle where Fear wants or needs to be involved, but Joy is attempting to always keep Riley happy.
What I also appreciated was there was no overt villain to battle in the climax. It was a good story about these emotions working together, specifically Joy and Fear.
Very entertaining story that doesn’t drag, and it looks great on the screen.
Inside Out (2015)