That's Why We Have Therapists

Rating: 6/10 (20 July 2015)

It was a normal Saturday. I was rather upbeat and delighted to take the family to see Inside Out. Pixar usually does so well with their movies that I knew this would be another animated favorite. Well I didn't leave the theater as upbeat as I'd gone in. Inside Out was one of the more morose animations I've seen in a long time. I don't think I've been this down watching a Disney animation since Bambi's mother was killed.
The premise of Inside Out was much like the 90's sitcom Herman's Head: emotions are represented in the head of the main character as individual characters. There was Joy, Sadness, Anger, Caution and Disgust. Joy was definitely the dominant character. She monopolized most of the emotional time, which is good, until something went awry. Then Riley, the main character whose head we were looking into, went from joyful to a state of depression and apathy, and not in a funny way. The movie hit a real somber and even dark note and stayed there for some time. Now, we're talking about a Disney movie so of course there was a happy ending but I don't think it was nearly happy enough to overcome the incredibly dampened mood that was cast over the movie. I remember quietly commenting that this girl needs a therapist.
The movie had a good message and put a good spin on the need and meaning of our more negative emotions. Small parts of the movie went off the rails and I think that's because it was taking place inside someone's head. Anything is possible inside someone's mind and how do you graphically represent some of the things in a mind? It was a difficult story Pixar tried to tackle and they did OK.