The closest Pixar have come to pure perfection

Rating: 10/10 (17 November 2015)

A film will come along perhaps once every few years that has a profound effect on me to the point that I view the world slightly differently than I did before. Inside Out - the majestic and extremely moving latest effort from Pixar - is one of those films. Pixar's back catalogue is a stellar line-up of classics, with even the lesser titles having something going for them, but I believe Inside Out is there finest to date. It's a brave, emotionally complex story that will likely leave some children depressed and adults even more so, but this is mature film-making of the very highest order.
A girl named Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) is born into the world, and her mind instantly starts to develop her core emotions. Joy (Amy Poehler) is first to arrive and forms an instant bond with Riley. Soon enough, she is joined by Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black) and Disgust (Mindy Kaling), as Riley's personality begins to develop. Joy rules the roost during Riley's happy childhood, but as the years go by and Riley moves to a new city, the other emotions start to influence her actions. After a minor breakdown in front of her new classmates, Riley struggles to adapt to the changes, and Joy and Sadness find themselves whisked off into the deepest regions of her mind while the others struggle to steady the ship.
Pixar have never lacked visual imagination (they are the great innovators of computer animation after all), and they have worked overtime with Inside Out. What begins as a playful portal into the mind of an immature girl, the setting becomes more layered as she grows. Branches stretch out to reveal various aspects of Riley's personality, core memories are collected and stored in glowing spheres, and there is a literal train of thought that runs throughout the mind. The creativity is truly let off the leash when Joy and Sadness get caught up in the abstract thought region, and find themselves quickly morphing from a Picasso-esque form to two dimensional to nothing more than a straight line. The fearlessness of which directors Pete Docter and Ronnie Del Carmen approach the subject matter is one of the many endearing things about Inside Out.
Along Joy and Sadness's journey, they encounter Bing Bong (Richard Kind), a ridiculous amalgamation of cat, elephant and dolphin with a candy-floss torso, who turns out to be Riley's childhood imaginary friend. As she has matured, Bing Bong has slowly been forgotten, and spends his time watching old memories. Providing welcome comic relief as well as providing an insight into a more innocent and care-free time of Riley's life, Bing Bong may just be Pixar's most ingenious creation. Well aware that his time may soon be up as he is forgotten completely, he selflessly aids Joy and Sadness (as well as hindering their progress with his constant bumbling). He is an immensely lovable but ultimately tragic character, and Pixar gracefully avoids intensely pulling the heart-strings in favour of something more emotionally honest, achieving a harder gut-punch in the process.
If you go in expecting a cuddly family movie then you may be disappointed. The opening third is more interested in developing its vast, intricate world and developing the bond between the host and her emotions than delivering prat-falls and goofy voices. The human brain is a wonderful, fascinating place, and Inside Out revels in exploring its endless possibilities. It also teaches a thing or two about how we work by lumping Joy and Sadness together, two complete opposites of the same spectrum who could not exist without the other. Children's movies have always leaned towards pure escapism, a world in which true horror is either non-existent or easily defeated, but Inside Out shows us that its normal, healthy, and ultimately inevitable, to experience sadness. I don't like to throw the term 'masterpiece' around, but this is the closest Pixar have come to pure perfection.