Joy and Sadness

Rating: 10/10 (25 June 2015)

Inside Out is one of the most daring films for children - and for adults as well - that I can think of from Hollywood, in the sense that it tells the audience "look, not only can you be sad sometimes, you NEED to be sad". That may be the ultimate takeaway, but it permeates a lot of the conflict of the film; there's no real key 'villain' here, and like Pixar's previous film, Monsters University, there's no really clear antagonist ala the robot in WALL-E or Jason Lee in the Incredibles.
The stakes are all about 'what is this person going to choose to do, to be, to have the growth and change of human experience?' And with kids too, it's a fascinating idea to explore in the depth this does. Many times as children, we're told to not be so sad, to pick up our spirits and be happy, or be happier, to not cry, to not be angry, and some children even get punished if they, say, cry too much or throw temper tantrums - if they're not "normal" in the sense of having constant joy. Look at Winnie the Pooh to see the many different takes on outlooks, such as Tigger being boundless energy, Pooh being curiosity, Piglet fear, Rabbit the 'brains', with Eeyore being the one who is constantly sad, and almost made to seem like kind of a punch-line, the "Nobody's here but me" deal.
If that sounds a little deep to take your four year old too, don't worry: this is one of the company's most entertaining and, often, funny films. It builds exponentially on the segment from Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, where we saw inside the mind of a man while on a date/during sex. Of course this is a PG kid's movie so it can't go there (It's an 11 year old-girl after all), but the filmmakers give us five 'emotions' with Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear, who all control little Riley as she goes about her life. When her family moves to San Francisco, and a mishap occurs in the control room - Joy and Sadness get taken away and, in maybe the one real Pixar trope (Toy Stories and Nemo come to mind), they got to get back to where they need to be.
Growing up and experiencing new things is what Inside Out is about, and getting there is the ultimate conflict. And while it appeals to kids who may be going through this (or will), and for adults who can tap into what Riley goes through, it doesn't stop for jokes involving the different places inside the consciousness sphere: sub-consciousness, 'Dream-Land' (the movie studio, with the dream filter over the camera lens for filming), Imagination-Land, and (my personal favorite) Abstract Thought, where beings turn step by step into shapes and colors.
This latter one shows off just how endlessly clever Pixar can be, by making doodles and figures one might see in a painting right before us. And even the Emotion characters themselves keep making the studio work wonders: look at how the hair and fibers on these things comes off and has the depth of detail one always look for in the films from these guys. By now the company could be resting on their laurels solely - and there are some more (unnecessary?) sequels to come. But Inside Out poses another challenge for them, to make all of these different 'lands' and environments, the max of the Memory Balls, the "Train of Thought", everything that shows everything was given consideration and metric-tons of creative wit.
There's many laughs to be had following along with Joy and Sadness as they try to find their way back, and this is balanced out by the very real, painful things that a child goes through, especially at the age of 11. It's difficult to make an authentic movie in live-action, but in animation it just comes off like a miracle of some kind; all of the peril means something, and a seemingly goofy side character, like Bing-Bong the imaginary friend to Riley, is fully realized as anyone else in the film. Watch when Riley's objects in Imagination Island fall away, and Bing-Bong doesn't know what to do with himself, as Sadness comes up and makes him go forward. Joy doesn't realize why this should be - why can't she cheer him up? It may or may not be obvious, which is what makes the storytelling so precise and tender and spot-on.
Some clichés are dealt with - have a dream with your underpants on and falling teeth, of course - and I wouldn't want it any other way in this film. Inside Out is rich in everything you want in a movie: comedy, drama, thrills, and, more than once real catharsis. It doesn't kid the kids, or the adults. You need everything inside you to be whole, is what it means to say, and it does it with brio and understanding of the human spirit.