Surprising Dramatical heft with limited laughs

Rating: 7/10 (12 July 2015)

Is a kid's movie that is incredibly moving and thought provoking still successful if its only mildly funny? Came into this one with pretty high expectations due to the eye-popping reviews and it was the first film I brought my niece and nephew too. If you have seen my top movies of 2014 lists, then it is apparent that I can really appreciate animated movies, with The Lego Movie being my #2 favorite movie of that year. Would Inside Out be this years Lego Movie? or the bigger question, would my niece Henley be able to sit through a whole movie? Inside Out is an inventive story that follows a young girl Riley and her emotions; Joy, Rage, Fear, Sadness, and Disgust. She is a seemingly happy girl with her family up in Minnesota and with Joy (Amy Poehler) at the controls of her emotions. There are bowling ball looking spheres that represent memories; gold for joy, green for disgust, red for anger, green for fear, and blue for sadness. With Joy leading the way of all the emotions, most of the spherical memories in Riley's mental inventory were a pure gold, including the core memories that helped create thematic islands that represent Riley's life. Then within a blink of an eye Riley gets uprooted from her life in Minnesota and moves to San Fransisco. All the emotions panic and Joy's joy is shaken for a split second for the first time before she gains composure and tries to put on a smile during a bad situation.
As you can tell so far the story and idea are incredibly clever, and the execution was nearly flawless, but the big missing piece for me was the humor. The laughs for me were sparse, which was even true for my 3 year old niece, and 5 year old nephew. Spoiler: Brecken enjoyed the movie while Henley couldn't sit still, and even if she was sitting still, all the worth while themes would of probably flown over her head, but we still had a great time.
Once in San Fransisco, the fight gets real for Joy and the rest of the emotions to make Riley happy. Joy loses control though of sadness, who keeps touching memories which makes these joyful memories into sad memories. In the middle of one of these scruffs of joy trying to keep memories from sadness, they both get sucked out of the emotion headquarters and into the long-term memories. With joy gone and unable to help Riley's emotions, the happy and loving girl fades into a disgusted and fearfully angry girl, mainly towards to her parents (like so many of us did when we were kids). Riley, on the inside and out, slowly falls apart into an emotionally numb pre teen. This is actually a pretty dynamic and long plot for a kids movie so with specifics to the plot that's where I'll leave you.
When Joy is out trying to get back to the headquarters and throughout, Inside Out becomes an allegory that hits pretty heavily on some weighty issues regarding emotionally numb teens due to adults expecting you to always be happy, or just over medication of our kids. This works remarkably well and the emotional heft of this animated movie is pretty remarkable because this is a tremendously heavy and important topic it is hitting. Anyone who's grown up, which is everyone, really can relate to Riley and the battle of feeling like you have to be happy all the time even when there are times for sadness and how those mix of emotions can be a beautiful thing.
While Inside Out may of been lacking in laughs, it is more than successful in provoking deep thoughts and pulling at the heart strings. Younger kids below 7 or 8 probably will like something like the minions more due to its more obvious humor but for those looking for surprising dramatic heft, Inside Out is for you. Disclaimer: Missed about 3 minutes in the middle taking Henley to the bathroom and dispensing popcorn and their drink throughout, so may of missed some of the more clever jokes.