"YES we have a soul but it's made of lots of tiny robots!"

Rating: 10/10 (27 July 2015)

What interested me most while watching Inside Out was that the five emotions occupying Riley's 'headquarters' (Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear) themselves seemed to be capable of several emotions (namely, Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear). Who is controlling them, who is again controlling them, and where does this infinite regress end? Please look up the impossibility of Descartes's dualism if you want a full understanding on my opinion on this matter. While the story of Riley's family moving from Minnesota to San Francisco is itself fairly simple and uneventful, compared to what we usually expect from a feature film (yet touching to the point where I and my date shed a tear or ten in the theater), Inside Out's originality and genius comes from explaining the multitude of consciousnesses that comprises Riley's consciousness. Riley isn't just Riley, she is the previously named characters behind the control desk of her decision making. Is she being controlled by numerous homunculi, or are the homunculi her, controlling herself? How can Riley possibly choose to be joyful (as she tries), when Joy is thrown away from the 'headquarter'? Is Joy and Sadness hurting Riley by awakening the terrors of her subconscious, or does she do this to herself? Is Joy's love for Riley the part of Riley that loves herself, or is it a separate character's love for another's'? How is 'the family finally understanding each other', different from 'the different parts of Riley understanding each other in the end'? Is the family analogous to the different parts of Riley's 'self', as the family in the end comfort each other just like Joy and Sadness does? Is the harmony of the people in your life just as important as the harmony of the different parts of yourself? Is there any important difference between the different parts of yourself, and the different people on this planet? Inside Out illuminates a dimension every movie (and perhaps every real person) has. Forrest Gump, Vito Corleone, Rain Man, Aragon, George Bailey, Rick Blaine and Norman Bates all have a personality competing with itself. So why not make all the competing parts of one's personality into a separate character? Inside Out had the genius idea to try this, and it does just that! Pixar should begin an animated series showing the internal conflict of every divided fictional or factional person in history. What would the inside battle of Churchill, Gandhi, Hitler, Napoleon, Jeanne d'Arc, Aristotle, you or me look like (assuming that these people indeed are/were divided)? Have you ever been faced with a dilemma, fought against a part of yourself (even something as simple as an annoying tune stuck in your head), or disliked a part of yourself? Inside Out shows you how all these problems are actually different characters, fighting other characters inside your head. In Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, the characters carry their soul externally, instead of internally like we and the (human) characters from Inside Out does. When the characters in Pullman's trilogy reach adulthood, their soul (always in the shape of an animal) are fixed, and can no longer change between being different animals. Bear this in mind when you see how the adults in Inside Out seem to be in more harmony with themselves, than the children does. Riley's homunculi's (the protagonists of the story) struggle with each other is the main source of conflict in the film. The boy who in the end falls in love with Riley seems to have an even more chaotic 'headquarter'. What is 'growing up' of it is not a growing harmony of the different parts of yourself? Just like Pullman used an original way to portray our soul, so does Inside Out, in an even more miraculous way (in my humble opinion). Pixar is back on top of the game, back to Toy Story 3, Wall-E and Up. This time the company takes on even more perplexing philosophical issues, and I love them for it. As the only adult in the theater who took a date, and not my children to the movies, I cannot say how much of a children's film Inside Out is. But as a film, it is fun, insightful and original, and gets my 10/10.