Perfect marriage of idea and story

Rating: 9/10 (26 January 2016)

It seems Pete Doctor never ceases to fascinate us with his brilliant new ideas. Sometimes it's an old guy who soars with his house on balloons. Or it's the exciting and at times grotesque ( especially in Toy story 2) world of toys and perhaps it's a garbage collecting robot left alone on Earth who ignites love in a terminator. In his Golden Globe( and most probably Oscar) winning movie he has chosen human's emotions as his characters. There are four: Joy, Sadness, Anger and Disgust. But the movie is not about emotions. The major theme of this animation is actually growing up. What has catapulted this movie out of this world is not its novel idea, but how the makers were able to harness this novelty and did not let it overshadow the story. I can assume the conversation happening inside Pete Doctor's head:

Hey guys I found a great idea to make our new movie -Oh, yeah that's awesome but let's tell a good story too And oh boy haven't they succeeded at that? It's like they had this idea and put it away at the back of their head and lived with it for a long time then when the time was right they put it on the screen. After a brief introduction the new world, the gripping story starts, grabs your attention and never stops to the very end. A perfect marriage f idea and story. As you can expect, it is replete with symbols: Train of thoughts, imagination land, colors and what characters do( namely Bing Bong in his touching sacrifice). But again they almost never get in the way of the story. For example the idea that facts and opinions play each other's roles in a teenager's head, or the whole concept of déjà vu are mentioned so smoothly that we may not even notice them the first time we see the film. Explaining the symbols can simply take the romance away and one should discover and interpret them for themselves. Interestingly, it is not the kind of movie you want to talk about it with others. It is simply too personal. Like you want the whole thing to be your own. It actually assures you that everyone knows what it is about and they do not need your input and neither do you. We feel too close to Riley; we know her inside out after all.