"Do you ever look at someone and wonder, 'What is going on inside their head?'"

Rating: 8/10 (17 July 2015)

The human mind is a complex labyrinth of mental processes, conscious and unconscious thoughts, emotions, memories, and more. It's a muscle that's always working in complicated ways to ensure our survival in day-to-day interactions, and for human beings in particular, this extends to emotional well-being, socializing, rationalizing, communicating, and more. Few people, if any, fully understand how the human brain fully works; it's just always there, and the voices in our heads are always there to guide us through life. With Pixar's film Inside Out, filmmakers cleverly interpret neuroscience into a whole new universe where emotions are characters, memories are objects to be stored and used, and their interactions are what cause people to act the way they do.
In spite of the premise, the film definitely employs some imaginative world-building, featuring visually fantastic scenes where a person's mind is a surreal fantasy world akin to Alice in Wonderland (which in itself could be interpreted as a mental thing anyway). Within the mind of one little girl, there are "personality islands" that represents Riley's values; there's a literal "train of thought" that appears; there's a zone where "abstract thought" turns the characters into literally abstract figures; there's a film studio that makes dreams; and so much more. It's a clever way to translate what we know of the brain into literal places that are visually impressive and sometimes funny. What brings the mental landscape to life will be the characters though - the interaction between all the emotions creates plenty of hilarious comedy between themselves, and causes people to react in funny ways too. Altogether, the movie is just as cute, funny, and imaginative as Toy Story and Monsters Inc. were.
The story has two different narratives working for it. On one level, it's the simple story about Riley, the girl who has to move from rural Minnesota to San Francisco, and has to cope with all the stress of leaving behind home and living in a new place. In her head is where the bulk of the film's adventure takes place, in which Riley's Joy and Sadness both go missing and have to find their way back to headquarters before the other emotions mess up Riley's life for good. It's a pretty lightweight story on both accounts, with subtle levels of conflict. What makes the film compelling will be the characters, both external and internal. It is consistently fun to watch the emotions, for even though they are one-dimensional, their personalities clash and react in dynamic ways. Thanks to their relationships, Riley and her family are brought to life in a perfectly lovable way as well. Their struggles are struggles that we can all relate to though; the film underscores the turmoil around life changes and maturity that we all face at some point, and through those fundamental conflicts, the film reaches an emotional resonance as the characters straddle the threshold of maintaining psychological stability.
This film is crafted with top-notch animation quality. It's a bright and colorful film with plenty of imaginative designs. Lighting, textures, and rendering are all great. Movements are very lively and smooth. In some areas, it is genuinely impressive as to how big in scale some of the settings and locales are. Voice-acting is great from the whole cast, the writing is good, and the music score is appropriate.
Inside Out is cute, funny, and pretty clever, much like the other films Pixar is best known for. It deserves a look.
4/5 (Experience: Good | Content: Good | Film: Good)