Marvelously clever and insightful

Rating: Null/10 (18 November 2015)

In many ways Pixar is the only animation studio that can stand on par with Disney when it comes to the quality of their movies. And this film just might be crowning achievement of that. It tells about a young eleven-year-old girl, Riley, whose family moves from rural Minnesota to San Francisco. This causes great upheaval in her tiny little head and we get to see it play out. And in more detail than you'd ever imagine. For you see, all those tiny little voices in your head? In this movie they're real people, populating the control center of your head, guiding your actions. This is a movie about them as much as it is about Riley.
And yes, the idea has been done before, but usually as a throwaway gag, as a punchline to a joke, or as a fodder for jokes. And yeah, this is a lighthearted family animation film, there are plenty of jokes here as well, but the idea itself is treated very seriously and very maturely. What does it really mean to be influences by your emotions? What emotions are responsible for which aspects of your life? For example, what emotion do you need to feel empathy towards others? Think about it for a minute. The answer might surprise you.
While exploring the possibilities we also get the usual Pixar goodies. Exciting adventure, fantastic voice acting, superb animation, good music and some real tearjerker moments. It's an emotional film - try not to die from shock - but in the best possible way. It earns those laughs, tears and shudders. It's that good and that confident in its story.
And yeah, I have some nitpicks, like the fact that it is a bit strange that there's only one positive emotion, Joy, against four negative ones, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust. Or the fact that most of the side characters have extremely lazy character designs. The set designs and overall art style are both fantastic, but the side characters are mostly just blobs of colour, for some baffling reason. But that's just nitpicking. Nothing in this film is outright flawed.
This just jumped straight into the position of my favourite Pixar film. It's mature, insightful, just as suitable for adults as it is for kids and it's exactly the kind of film you can see over and over throughout your life and it will keep growing with you. So good to have you back, Pixar.