Fun Film

Rating: 9/10 (2 March 2019)

This week I watch the animated comedy adventure Inside Out (2015). Although this film suffers some interesting glaring loopholes, it is a wonderful example of externalizing intangibles. The concept of externalizing intangibles is simply a way of saying that certain non-physical elements are given physical manifestations. In this case, 11-year-old Riley's emotions adopt humanistic characterizations. The logline reads "After young Riley is uprooted from her Midwest life and moved to San Francisco, her emotions - Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness - conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house, and school." From a writer's perspective, I have a hard time getting past the idea that if Joy experiences any other emotion than Joy that would indicate that she also has a range of emotions and if so why do we never catch a glimpse of her internal controls? And if that's the case, then is this internal control system an infinite loop? Where does it stop? Once I push these questions to the side, I can appreciate the film for what it was intended to be on a more one-dimensional level. The concept of this film really is a wonderful idea and made for a fun children's story. Being a Pixar film, of course all of the production values are relatively standard for a major studio. I can only imagine how many rounds of edits and reviews were done by multiple artists and directors before the final cut was pushed through. The casting and acting were really well done and I'm not sure we would have had the same film had other actors been chosen for these roles. Overall, I enjoyed the film and would watch it again.