Inside Out

Remember that one really great time in your life? No seriously. Think about it. Close your eyes smile and let that warm clean gooey feeling rush over you. Laughing so hard you can’t see straight, the tears blurring your vision, and your abs hurting worse than any P90X seems to be able to rip at them. The moment you stop laughing you look at your friend you start to giggle again and then boom, the encore begins. Best encore ever. Now take a break. Reset your emotional palate. Think of grocery store whole-wheat toast. Good. Now think of a moment where you were really anxious, nervous and worried. Blech, I can see them all looking at me. I don’t know exactly what to say. They didn’t laugh at my joke the way other people usually do, my minds racing. I don’t know where to go, what to do.


It’s amazing how powerful our memories and emotions are. Have you ever stopped to think what goes on behind all of it? Well, director Pete Doctor did in the innovative movie Inside Out.
The movie primarily focuses on 5 emotions inside 11-year-old, goofy, family oriented, hockey loving Riley. Joy (Amy Poehler), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), and Sadness (Phyllis Smith). They operate out of Headquarters, powering Riley’s responses to life, creating memories and interacting to help Riley out in different situations. Riley’s Minnesotan¹ life is pretty good. Filled with lots of happy memories, including all of her 5 core memories, which power her different personality islands (Hockey Island, Goofball Island, Friendship Island, Honesty Island and Family Island).


But life throws a curve ball when Riley’s Father² has to move the family to San Francisco for a new tech start up. Things get more complicated when Sadness touches a previously happy memory and turns it sad, causing Riley to cry in front of her new classmates and Riley’s once totally happy life begins to take a turn with the production of her first sad core memory. The story further complicates when Joy and Sadness are sucked down a neural tube into Long Term Memory land along with Riley’s 5 core happy memories, shutting down her personality islands and leaving Anger, Fear and Disgust to run the show. Meanwhile Sadness and Joy must journey through the rest of


Riley’s brain to get back to Headquarters as quickly as possible so that Joy can bring happiness back to Riley.
Inside Out eloquently explores the perils of growing up with a unique perspective. Doctor focuses on Riley’s emotional maturing as the conflict rather than inserting a villain to push and challenge her. The overarching message is quite remarkable and one that I don’t think a lot of kids, let alone adults, hear enough: there’s a season and moment for everything. Growing, changing, and maturing aren’t just about being happy all the time. And sometimes life sucks³, but growth can still occur despite sadness, fear, anger, or disgust.

Pixar once again flexes their animation muscles combining fantastic art, story and enjoyable voice acting⁴ to create another classic in the realm of the Toy Story franchise, The Incredibles, and Up⁵. Inside Out is a must see and well worth the time, money and tears⁶.

Rating: 9/10

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1 Shout out to Minnesota!

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2Who does have nice sweater game.

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3Especially when you’re moving away from MN.

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4Keeping true to form with fun cameos and the classic John Ratzenberger.

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5Really I guess most of their movies could be listed here and it might have been easier to just list the ones that are phenomenal.

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6Because there probably will be tears a few times—plus it’s ok to be sad, guys!