A delight for children and adults alike

Rating: Null/10 (18 August 2015)

This is such a great time for kids' movies that, if you don't have children or grandchildren, you need to borrow or steal a youngster or just go along anyway. For this one, my wife and I were fortunate enough to have her great niece (nine) and great nephew (seven)- thanks, guys.
Children's animation does not come much more inventive and challenging than "Inside Out" from Pixar, the studio that gave us "Toy Story" and "Up", and director/writer Pete Docter, the man who worked on these earlier achievements. Most of the film takes place inside the mind of an 11 year old girl called Riley who is suffering from her parents' move from Minnesota (where Pete Docter grew up) to San Francisco. Her emotions are brought to life by five colourful characters called Joy (yellow), Sadness (blue), Anger (red), Disgust (green) and Fear (purple). The moral of the story is that, for a young person facing a new environment (indeed for all of us), it's tough for Joy to keep all the other emotions in check but it's OK to be sad sometimes.
Visually the movie is a treat: as well as the five emotions battling over the control deck in Riley's mind, there are five Peronality Islands, the Subconscious, the Train of Thought, and endless multi-coloured balls representing memories to be stored, sorted and lost. The brilliance of the film is that there is lots of humour for the kids but plenty to think about for the adults. Its success with both critics and audiences seems certain to augur a sequel based around a mysterious button which has emerged on the control deck called Puberty.