Review: Inside Out

The story of young Riley as mostly seen through the inside of her head where HQ is run by five emotions: Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler), Sadness (voiced by Phyllis Smith), Anger (voiced by Lewis Black), Fear (voiced by an unrecognisable Bill Hader), and Disgust (voiced by a thankfully unrecognisable Mindy Kaling). When Riley moves to San Francisco with her family, things start to take a downward turn for her. When things go really awry at her new school, both Joy (who tries to trigger positivity to cheer Riley up) and Sadness find themselves sucked out of HQ and into the vast storage space at the back of Riley’s mind, where old forgotten memories go. With only Anger, Fear, and Disgust at the helm and Riley’s emotional state worsening, Joy and Sadness try to make their way back to the control room. They also encounter Riley’s old imaginary friend, Bing Bong (voiced by Richard Kind).

 

OK, so first “A Bug’s Life” rips off “Three Amigos!” (which itself was a parody of “The Magnificent Seven”, which was a remake of “The Seven Samurai”), then “Cars” for some bizarre reason decided to remake “Doc Hollywood” with vehicles instead of humans. Now Disney/Pixar have decided to give us an animated version of the semi-obscure (and underrated) sitcom “Herman’s Head”, with this 2015 film from directors Pete Docter (“Monsters, Inc.”, “Up”) and Ronaldo Del Carmen (a storyboard artist on “Up” and “Ratatouille”). Um, OK then. At least this time out, though, you can argue that the basic concept goes further back than “Herman’s Head”, as Docter apparently worked on a Disneyworld attraction called Cranium Command, that many will claim is the true inspiration for this film. Fair enough, but I must admit it was “Herman’s Head” that I was thinking of throughout. Scripted by Josh Cooley (who has helped out in various jobs on “Brave”, “Cars 2”, and “Up”), Meg LeFauve (“The Good Dinosaur”) and Docter, I have my issues with it, and it’s not Disney/Pixar’s best, but there’s enough entertainment here to get it across the line.

 

Whether you want to call the whole “Herman’s Head” (or Cranium Command) set-up original or not, the detail, the actual worldview here is undeniably fascinating and if not original, at least imaginative. I loved that inside Riley is a Disneyland-esque array of different themed areas to her mind. It’s a clever and interesting design. It’s a bit facetious to call it a “Herman’s Head” rip-off as there’s plenty of room to move with this basic concept but in the kids movie arena (It’s a better fit than the “Doc Hollywood” plot was for “Cars”). In fact, there’s also a bit of “Toy Story” to the plot, except the toys were mere observers in the kid’s life for the most part, whereas the characters here seem to take on a more proactive role in the child’s life. I may have my issues with just how smart the film is as opposed to how smart it thinks it is, but at least here’s a family movie attempting something a little more intellectual than most. It’ll get you (and hopefully even kids) thinking, and that’s something to celebrate.

 

It’s really interesting seeing the inside world crumble as the girl gets progressively less happy. I also loved the character of Bing Bong, Riley’s imaginary friend whom she has subsequently forgotten about. Although I was initially worried about the psychological implications if Riley should’ve been reminded of her former (imaginary) friend, the way thing work out is perfectly fine and he’s such a loveable character perfectly voiced by Richard Kind (his best work since “Spin City”). I mean, at least it wasn’t Brad Fucking Garrett, that would’ve made me want to punch my ears back into my skull. Seriously, can that guy fuck off from animated movies for like…forever now? His voice (and it’s always the same) has been played out. I liked that you get to see more of the kid and her life, whereas in the “Toy Story” films you didn’t see much of the kid. It’s fascinating when only Anger, Disgust, and Fear are at the controls, things go really badly for Riley. I mean, sure Sadness is AWOL at that point, but those are still three very extreme emotions in charge. It’s pretty interesting when we see that the parents are also being controlled by several emotions, and hilariously the dad’s emotions are all sports nuts.

 

I suppose you could nit-pick and say that the basic concept suggests that human beings are merely puppets having their strings pulled by various emotions, but let’s not even go there. You sat down to watch the movie knowing roughly what it’s about, that’d be petty. Besides, it’s probably meant to be somewhat metaphorical anyway. The bigger problem for me was that Joy is presented almost entirely as the only one of the emotions who is allowed to be right about anything. I personally think that, although it’s nice that the film has a brain in its head, there’s something wonky going on there. As far as I’m concerned, sometimes Anger or Sadness are the appropriate emotions. Someone who always seems happy 100% of the time leaves you questioning whether they’re a sociopath. You end up feeling sorry for poor Sadness, because Joy really doesn’t treat her well for much of the film. I guess that’s one of the problems when marketing a film to youngsters, you can’t really promote negative emotions…but you really kinda should in this case I think, because it’s a little dishonest otherwise. I almost felt like Sadness was seen as a figure of fun or ridicule at times, and I’m really not cool with that. Sadness came off a bit like the kid at school whose negativity pushed people away, but does that mean we should poke fun? Of course not. And why do the filmmakers feel like Sadness has to change? Isn’t being happy 24/7 called being a sociopath or psychopath? The film does try to reconcile all of this a bit towards the end, but not quite enough for me. Also, Anger never really changes emotion and Sadness barely cracks a smile, yet Joy cries at one point. I found that a bit weird. I must say I feel like Empathy should be in the mix here somewhere, too. I get that each of the emotions probably covers a whole subset of emotions, but I wouldn’t consider Empathy a sub-emotion. It might be the most important one of all, in fact and would be a much more logical choice for a dominant emotion than Joy. I just think thematically, although interesting, there’s some very wonky things going on that didn’t quite sit right with me.

 

Although the character of Joy looks like someone used the same colour scheme as the one for Marge Simpson (but with everything else changed to avoid being sued- it’s like Marge, Judy Jetson and Tinkerbell had an accident in the science lab), it’s an attractive-looking film. Credit where it’s due, the human animation may still be blobby and wrinkle-free, but it’s slightly better than usual, with baby Riley in particular looking good. I also thought neurotic, angry comedian Lewis Black was a perfect choice to voice Anger.

 

Gives you more to chew on than the average Disney/Pixar film, but as much as the concept is interesting, I don’t think all of the kinks have been ironed out, leading to some rather questionable messaging. It’s a pretty-looking film, and occasionally very clever. It appears to have hit a nerve with a lot of people, but it only gets a soft recommendation from me.

 

Rating: B-