Respond to these rapid questions in our Inside Out quiz and we will tell you which Inside Out character you are. Play it now.
Inside Out, a comedy-adventure film set inside the mind of an 11-year old girl, is the kind of timeless classic that lingers in the mind long after it has been seen, evoking personal associations in the audience. And if it proves to be as successful as I believe it will be, it has the potential to lift American studio animation out of the rut it has been stuck in for years. In addition, it stays away from many of the cliched visuals and storytelling beats that make even the best Pixar films, and many films by Pixar’s competitors, feel stale and stale-feeling. However, even as they draw inspiration from previous animated classics (including the works of Hayao Miyazaki) and explore situations and feelings that everyone has experienced to some degree, the best parts of it feel completely original.
The majority of the film takes place entirely within the mind of young Riley (Kaitlyn Dias), who is depressed as a result of her mother and father’s decision to relocate them from Minnesota to San Francisco, thereby separating her from her friends and family. Riley’s emotions are determined by the interplay of five characters who are overtly “cartoonish” in their appearance: Anger (Lewis Black), a flat-topped fireplug with devilish red skin and nondescript slacks, a fat tie, and a short-sleeved shirt; Sadness (Phyllis Smith), who’s soft and blue and recessive; Fear (Bill Hader), a scrawny, purple, bug-eyed character with question-mark posture; Disgust (Mindy Kaling), who’s a rich green There is a master control room with a board on which the five major emotions compete against one another to gain control of the situation. Sometimes Joy is the dominant emotion, other times Fear, other times Sadness, and so on, but never to the exclusion of the other emotions in a given situation. While controlling emotions, the controller is aware of what the other emotions are saying and cannot help but be affected by it.
Memory spheres the size of softballs are used to represent the heroine’s emotions, which are color-coded by dominant emotion (joy, sadness, fear, and so on). These spheres are transported from one mental location to another through a vacuum tube-type system, where they are classified and stored as short-term memories or long-term memories, or tossed into a “abyss,” which serves the same function on the computer as the trash bin. A worker in Riley’s memory bank expresses dissatisfaction with the phone numbers. “We don’t require any of these. They’re all stored in her phone! “) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) With touches that recall illustrated books, fantasy films (including Pixar’s) and theme parks aimed at vacationing families, Riley’s mental terrain has the jumbled, brightly colored, vacu-formed design of mass market toys or board games, with touches that suggest illustrated books, fantasy films (including Pixar’s), and theme parks aimed at vacationing families (there are “islands” floating in mental space, dedicated to subjects that Riley thinks about a lot, like hockey). Suppose you have an imaginary boyfriend, the type who is nonthreatening and looks like a teen pop idol and who says, “Riley is someone I would die for. I currently reside in Canada.” A “Train of Thought” that transports us through Riley’s subconscious is reminiscent of one of those miniature trains you can ride at zoos; it chugs through the air on rails that appear in front of the train and disappear behind it, as if it were a real train.
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On the first day of fifth grade, Riley arrives at her new school and recalls a memory that has been color-coded as “joyful,” but has been reclassified as “sad” after Sadness touches it, causing Riley to sob in front of her classmates. Sadness has done this before, and she and Joy are the two most dominant emotions in the film, and they both do it again. This makes sense when you consider how nostalgia, which is primarily what Riley is experiencing as she recalls her Minnesota past, brings together these two emotions. During a struggle between Joy and Sadness, “core memories” are knocked loose from their containers and accidentally vacuumed up, along with the two emotions, and spat into the wider world of Riley’s emotional interior, causing him to lose his mind. The remainder of the film is a race against time to prevent these fundamental memories from being, effectively, erased. Meanwhile, back at the headquarters, the emotions of Fear, Anger, and Disgust are in charge.
Inside Out Quiz
It’s important to note at this point that all of these characters and locations, as well as the supporting characters that we meet inside Riley’s brain, are all purely figurative. Like the characters and symbols on Tarot cards, they are visual representations of ineffable sensations that cannot be described. And it is in this respect that “Inside Out” distinguishes itself from other Pixar films. Specifically, it does not fall into the categories of fantasy or science fiction, which are categories that describe most of the rest of the company’s output. In many ways, it’s more like an extended dream that interprets itself as it goes along, but it’s also firmly rooted in the present. Even though Riley’s mind is a fantasy world, the world outside of Riley’s mind is remarkably similar to our own, albeit represented by stylized, computer-rendered drawings. There is nothing that occurs there that could not also occur in our world. The majority of the action takes place in a setting that a studio executive would describe as “low stakes”: Riley struggles through her first day at a new school, becomes frustrated by her parents’ insistence that she “buck up,” storms to her room and pouts, and so on.
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We see a clear connection between what happens to Riley in San Francisco (and what happened to her when she was a child) and the figurative or metaphorical representations of those same experiences that we see inside her mind, which is a parallel universe of fond memories, repressed pain, and tangled connections. The most endearing and heartbreaking moments in the film revolve around Riley’s imaginary friend Bing-Bong (Richard Kind), who she hasn’t thought about in years. As a creature of pure goodwill, he only wishes for Riley to enjoy himself and be content with his life. A heroic dimension is added to his character by his serene acceptance of his obsolescence, which is symbolized by a red wagon that can fly and leaves a rainbow trail behind it. He is a Ronin of optimism, and he still swears allegiance to the Samurai who freed him from slavery years ago.
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“Inside Out,” directed by Pete Docter (“Monsters, Inc.” and “Up”) and written by Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley from a story by Ronnie del Carmen and Pete Docter, has the intricate interplay of image and sound that you’ve come to expect from Pixar. It also features the company’s trademark three-leveled humor, which is aimed at, respectively, very young children, older children and adults, as well as pop culture enthusiasts who are always on the lookout for a clever homage to a well-known figure (a separate class of obsessive). There’s nothing quite like hearing a theater full of people laughing at the same joke at the same time for a variety of reasons. Bing-Bong, Joy, and Sadness are racing to catch the Train of Thought in a scene that is both exciting and funny, thanks to the elegant way it is staged and delivered by Poehler, Smith, and Kind’s delivery of the lines. Adults, on the other hand, will appreciate the straightforward manner in which it riffs on poetic and psychological concepts, and fans of the histories of animation and fine art will appreciate the way the filmmakers pay homage to other artistic schools. After passing through Abstract Thought, where they are transformed into barely-representational characters with mangled Cubist features, they are mutated into flat figurines that recall characters from a 1960s short film by UPA, or an animation company with roots in Eastern Europe, before arriving in Imagination Land. There are also some very clever throwaway gags, such as a character’s observation that facts and opinions look “so similar,” and a pair of posters seen in a studio where dreams and nightmares are created, which read “I’m Falling For a Very Long Time Into a Pit” and “I Can Fly!”
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It is clear that the filmmakers have done extensive research into actual psychology, rather than the Hollywood film version. Initial readings of the script suggest that the script is leaning toward Joy’s interpretation of what things mean and what the other emotions should “do” for Riley. But we soon realize that Sadness has just as much to offer as Joy, that Anger, Fear, and Disgust are all valuable, and that none of them should be cherished at the expense of the other emotions. The film also demonstrates how things can be remembered with joy, sadness, anger, fear, or disgust, depending on where we are in our lives’ narrative and what part of a memory we are fixated on. To see the film, click here. In a fantastic scene late in the story, we “swipe” through one of Riley’s most cherished memories and discover that it is not simply sad or happy: it is first very sad, then less painfully sad, and finally joyful. Orson Welles made a great observation that we might think about: “If you want a happy ending, it all depends on where you stop your story,” he said.
What makes the film even more remarkable is how depression is presented: so subtly but unmistakably that it is never explicitly labeled as such throughout the course of the film. Riley appears to be depressed, and he has good reason to be so as well. The abyss into which her core memories have been thrown is also a representation of depression in its own right. Riley stays in her personal abyss until she is ready to climb out of it, which is a true reflection of life. There is no “miracle cure” that will make the discomfort disappear. She only needs to be patient and know that she is loved.
In the words of an old mentor, we have no control over our emotions, only over what we choose to do about them. Even if we understand this, it can still be difficult to make good decisions because our feelings are so strong, and there is a battle going on for our attention from a slew of competing emotions. This is something that “Inside Out” understands. In this way, it avoids the kinds of grating, self-serving, binary statements that kids always despise hearing their parents make: “Things aren’t so bad.” You have the ability to choose happiness. Consider the positive aspects of the situation. In spite of the fact that we root for Riley to overcome her despair, we are never led to believe that she is simply being childish or that she would not be taking everything so seriously if she were older. We are concerned about her and with her. She is a kaleidoscope of emotions.
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