Inside Out: Feel all the Feelings

Halfway through Inside Out, I got worried that I wasn't going to like this movie. It seemed to be going in a direction I didn't approve of and the overall message seemed too neat and perky. Ten minutes before this movie ended, I was in tears, overwhelmed by the bittersweet poignancy of this story that gets absolutely everything right about growing up and becoming yourself.

Inside Out takes place inside the mind of 11-year old Riley (Kaitlyn Dias), a young girl from Minnesota with two loving parents. When I say it takes place inside her mind, I mean literally - most of the movie is set in the headquarters of her brain, where we meet the five emotions that juggle the controls and decide how Riley will respond to the outside world. There's Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Bill Hader), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), and their de facto leader, Joy (Amy Poehler). That is an all-star cast of voice talent right there, and they personify these emotions superbly. From Riley's birth, Joy has been at the controls, ensuring that the majority of Riley's memories are warm and happy, punctuated only by occasional temper tantrums courtesy of Anger, some caution due to Fear, and a hatred of broccoli due to Disgust. No one is quite sure what role Sadness has to play and at first, it looks like this movie is all about how important it is for Riley to stay "a happy girl," without Sadness interfering at the controls.

However, when Riley's life goes through an abrupt change, a disaster results in Joy and Sadness getting lost in Riley's long-term memory storage. Digust, Anger, and Fear are at the controls, unsure what to do, and Riley becomes a surly prepubescent young girl, unaware of how to handle herself and losing the bits of her personality that made her so unique. Joy is desperate to return to headquarters and drags Sadness through the brilliantly-imagined maze of Riley's mind, a smorgasbord of philosophical and neurological detail that is astounding in terms of its creativity and precision. This is a masterful movie, whimsically bringing to life the areas of your brain that deal with imaginary friends, dreams, abstract thought, and of course, the dark subconscious. There is a literal Train of Thought and little mind workers that hoover up the facts that are cluttering Riley's memory (e.g. "US Presidents? Just leave Washington, Lincoln, and the fat one, get rid of the rest"). In fact, the one problem with this movie is that it is so complex that a young child might lose interest after a while.

As Joy and Sadness make their way through this world, it looks like Sadness will continue to be a useless bummer, ruining everything she touches and constantly crimping Joy's plans to get back to headquarters. And therein lies the revelation of the movie. Because after Joy abandons Sadness, she finds a memory that suddenly makes her realize her worth, and recognize why Sadness is such an important emotion after all. Cue the tears.

Inside Out is a beautiful, remarkable movie and full kudos go to its writers, Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve, and Josh Cooley. Visually spectacular and emotionally stirring (with a reliably wonderful score by Michael Giacchino), it is wildly imaginative and thrilling. While most of it takes place in Riley's head, we do get occasional glimpses into her parents' minds as well, for some amusing insights into the adult brain. But overall, this is a story about how it feels to grow up, to lose control of your emotions, to understand that it's impossible to be happy all the time, and that once in a while, it is both right and natural to be sad. While childhood is a time when the majority of your memories can be straightforwardly joyful, growing up allows you to experience a more complicated set of emotions. And Inside Out wants you to know that it is possible to feel all those feelings while still staying true to yourself.