It Never Entered My Mind

Rating: 5/10 (13 April 2020)

I don't know but sometimes I felt as if I needed a degree in psychology to fully join up the thought processes which not only went together to create this acclaimed Disney / Pixar movie but also that went on inside the mind of the animated young girl Riley at the centre of the action.
Ambitious it certainly was, attempting the fine balance which all Pixar films strive to achieve between providing the cartoon fun beloved of young children and the sophistication demanded of the adult who more than likely has to accompany their child to the movie. I don't know if the five key emotions identified and depicted here of joy, sadness, disgust, fear and anger would be the ones I'd identify as primary to a pre-teen child, and once joy and sadness exited their main functions, struggled a little to explain some of the motivations choices made by the three remaining, competing feelings.
Again maybe it's me but I also didn't quite follow either the journey of the two dominant emotions back to the central cortex as it were and wondered a little if some of the characters they met along the way weren't just inserted for promotional tie-in purposes. I'd also argue that every child experiences a different mind-set as they grow up and didn't accept the applied generalised psychoanalysis here.
Okay, maybe all this means that cynicism would be one of the guiding traits in my own mind but even in the wider picture the film didn't really reach out to me in the usual Pixar manner in terms of humour or emotion. There were occasional humorous but not hilarious moments and certainly some lovely and lively animation to see but for me it all went a little above my head leaving my mind-set at the end in neutral.