DOES INSIDE OUT DELIVER ACCURATE MESSAGES ABOUT BIG FEELINGS TO  CHILDREN?

Once again, Pixar delivers another excellent animation about the mind and dealing with emotions. Inside Out is a superbly original, thought-provoking and profound tale to leave you in tears.

11-year-old Riley and her loving parents move to San Francisco, where her five core emotions, Joy, Fear, Anger, Sadness and Disgust struggle to cope with leaving her old life in Minnesota.

Director: Pete Docter
Cast: Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Richard Kind, Bill Hader, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling, Kaitlyn Dias, Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan
Writer: Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley
Release Date (Australia): 18 June 2015
Runtime: 95 minutes/1h 35m
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Family
Country: USA
Language: English

PG (for mild thematic elements and some action)

Incredibly imaginative, imaginatively original, touchingly serious and seriously complex, Inside Out is a beautifully-executed theory on the workings of the mind, emotions and thoughts. Most young children will see this animated adventure, laugh at the jokes, feel the emotions and leave thinking of it as entertaining fun with mild emotional intensity. But they usually won’t take away the seriousness of the themes than what teenagers, adults and older audiences in general will understand about this masterpiece.

Exploring the world inside your mind, dealing with tough feelings and digesting the construction of a living being’s personality, Inside Out is undeniably one of Pixar’s more mature and grown-up films. The plot isn’t focused on the outside world; director/co-writer Pete Docter decides to take us into an analogy featuring five core emotions, Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust, as characters inside of the mind of an 11-year-old girl who’s moved from Minnesota to San Francisco with her loving parents. If you have not yet seen Inside Out, the paragraph you have just read is all you need to know. Try to avoid trailers, teasers, detailed plot synopsises and spoilers.

Most animated Disney/Pixar movies are gorgeously animated, use magical vocal performances, perfectly execute an original concept and do it in a way that reaches to your feelings and touches your heart; Inside Out is no exception. The film is a wonderfully animated and emotional journey, with a wonderful soundtrack, complex concept and the cast voicing the characters inside this young girl’s mind have chemistry between them that gives them the feeling that they’ve been together forever, through all the struggles and all the good times.

As said, this movie is basically an analogy of the brain and its works. It clearly would’ve been just as much of a learning journey for the creators, writers and filmmakers as it is for the characters and audience. We don’t just get to see inside the headquarters of the mind, but we get to venture deeply into the whole world inside the mind, too. There’s the Dream Productions Studio, the islands, the library of stored memories and the pit of forgotten memories. It’s so difficult to talk about this film without dropping information you shouldn’t know before you see the film, but it’s worth devoting your time and effort towards, and is one of Pixar’s greatest animations.

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