Inside Out: An Emotional Movie Review

What are they thinking? This is a question that has gone through everyone’s mind at some point or another in their lives. Well Disney and Pixar’s combined venture, Inside Out tries to answer this age old question.The film depicts the inner workings of the mind of 11 year old, Riley Anderson as she goes through the changes of moving to a new house, going to a new school and starting a new life in San Francisco.The five cardinal emotions; Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust that govern everyone’s mind are brought to life in this amusing 3D animated movie. They denote Riley’s conscious mind and control the responses to everything around her and also influence her memories. Voice cast includes Amy Poehler and Bill Hader of Saturday Night Live fame.

Through an unfortunate turn of events Riley’s Core Memories, that dictate her personality are detached from their normal holding places and Joy and Sadness are separated from the other emotions as they are taken out of Headquarters and into the deeper caverns of Riley’s mind.

What ensues is an entertaining and heartwarming journey that Joy and Sadness pursue to get back to Headquarters, restore the Core Memories and bring balance back to Riley’s life. In the meantime Anger, Fear and Disgust are left to control Riley’s emotions acting in the place of Joy and Sadness leading to hilarious consequences. However in the absence of the Core Memories each of the Core Memory Islands is in the danger of destruction.

Joy and Sadness travel through strange and wonderful places like Long Term Memory, Imagination Land, The Dream Factory and the mystifying Subconscious. All this while trying to avoid The Memory Dump and the permanent destruction of the Core Memory Islands.

The adorable characters, the comedy and fascinating theme of the film are what attracted me towards it. I personally don’t think the film had any low points. The film is thought provoking and leaves you at the end appreciating the importance of each emotion. We all give Joy the most attention but without Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust life wouldn’t be half as interesting.