Pixar is Back!

Rating: 9/10 (30 August 2015)

After Toy Story 3 (2010), Pixar's outputs seemed to have plateaued. Gone are the characters that stayed in your consciousness long after the movie has ended. Gone too are the original ideas that are amazingly simple but yet instantly relatable. In comes sequels/prequels that milked nostalgia like cheat codes. Sitting in a cinema yesterday, a big smile stayed on my face from start to end amidst some bouts of streaming hot tears. Pixar is so so back!
Inside our heads, there are five principal emotions, each personified here as Fear (Bill Hader), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), Anger (Lewis Black) and Joy (Amy Poehler). They live inside young girl Riley (Kaitlyn Dias). Joy, by running the controls and keeping everyone else under check, becomes the de facto boss. A happy Riley is a well-adjusted Riley, and her parents (Kyle MacLachlan and Diane Lane) are pleased with her. But, an accident involving Riley's happy memories changes her entire outlook. Joy and Sadness need to find her memories and return them to the Headquarters before it is too late.
The centre of the story is sadness. It is an emotion that I have always believed the most important in giving breadth to all other emotions. In all the writing classes I teach, I always ask my kids to think about the last time they were happy and to feel its fleeting intensity. Then I get them to recall the last time they encountered failure, a betrayal, a belittling statement... The sheer intensity and torrent of feelings never seem to diminish no matter how old you are. Time does heal old wounds but it doesn't make you forget them. Inside Out exemplifies all my beliefs and that all great stories come from a moment of sadness.
Before anyone starts to conclude that this latest Pixar offering is a sad-fest, it is not. This is a piece of incredible filmmaking. The ideas and visuals are electrifying but yet rendered with much tenderness and poignancy. I am no psychologist but I do have a strong feeling that everything depicted on screen has been carefully researched and no cognitive tidbit is left unchewed. For example, I have read somewhere that it is during our sleep that short term memories becomes long term ones, and how the concept is illustrated here is so simple and stupendous. The mindscape illustrated here is also a lavish wonderland of possibilities. There is also the proverbial "train of thought" that only runs when Riley is conscious which is so ingenious. The continuous personifications of the abstract into the concrete really makes this a 101 guide to "Understanding How The Brain Functions".
The wordplay is fantastic and they come fast and furious. I am sure I missed some in the midst of hearty laughter but the problem will be addressed once I lay my hands on the blu- ray. What I didn't miss are the emotional moments which have so much unforced poignancy. Absolutely love the moment when Joy realizes her place in the scheme of all things and when Sadness finally understands and embraces her meaning in life.
Inside Out is not just a superb return to form for Pixar, IMHO it might just be the best Pixar film to date, and it is easily one of the best films I had the pleasure of seeing this year. The only minor quibble I have, and I do underscore the words "minor" and "quibble", is that children might not be able to grasp the the full extent of the ramifications of the story. But I guess that would mean much healthy conversations between the parents and their kids. That's never bad thing. Growing up is a scary thing and being sad is absolutely okay.