'Inside out' hit me harder than any disney film has in a long time. While, on the surface, its a very colourful, funny, exciting story about the five emotions inside a little girl's head, there are some much more emotional and fairly dark themes presented in this film. Predominantly, this film is about growing up, making big transitions in life and coming to terms with leaving your childhood behind. It is a difficult thing to think about, especially from a child's perspective. Riley Anderson, a normal eleven year old girl has her whole world flipped upside down, when she is forced to move due to her Dad's job. She moves away from her friends and her home, and finds it very difficult adjusting to her new life. We are soon introduced to the five emotions in her head, Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust. Joy and Sadness end up lost in Riley's mind, and have to venture back home.
This film will make you laugh hysterically and sob your heart out, all within 94 short minutes, at least, thats what it did for me. This film is ingenious in the way that it looks at the human mind and our emotions. While extremely simplified, it still manages to capture the mind of a child perfectly. Director Pete Docter came up with the idea for this film after observing the changes in his own daughters personality as she grew up. There was lots of research done for this film into the psychological state of a child at this age. This is what makes the film so interesting. It tackles such important themes of growing up and gaining more complex emotions, but in a way that is very child friendly and visually appealing.
Personally,I think that this film is very important, because it holds a very powerful message for children: growing up is hard. Never have I seen before a film that has shown childhood to be what it is, instead of romanticizing it and making it seem as if being young is the easiest thing in the world. Inside out shows us that growing up is emotional and having to make big changes life is very distressing for kids It also shows that our range of emotions grows and changes as we grow.
To conclude, I think that Inside out is an incredibly visual, exciting adventure storey, which carries an extremely important moral message. This film is gold, and is one of my absolute favourite disney pixar films to date.
Great review Alice! I am a big fan of Inside Out myself. I am not going to lie my original pull to this movie was that some of my favourite actors (Amy Poehler, Mindy Kayling, Bill Hader) were voicing the film but since watching it I love it for what it does. I completely agree with you it is a very touching movie that gets you thinking about how many changes we face throughout life and childhood is just the start. How we deal with them is not always how we expect. We think feeling a certain way, for example being sad, is a bad thing but actually sometimes we need to be sad to realise some of our joys. Just like the movie shows us really.
I sat in the cinema with my best friend, her sister & boyfriend and the first to cry out of all of us was my best friend's boyfriend. He turned to me at the end of the film and spoke to me about how it felt just like when he was child and when things had changed for him.
I think it's brilliant that we get children thinking about these things at such a young age and being curious but also not feeling ashamed of their emotional side. My question is whether you think Disney can keep up this deeper thinking cinema for kids?