inside out movie review essay

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"Inside Out," a comedy-adventure set inside the mind of an 11-year old girl, is the kind of classic that lingers in the mind after you've seen it, sparking personal associations. And if it's as successful as I suspect it will be, it could shake American studio animation out of the doldrums it's been mired in for years. It avoids a lot of the cliched visuals and storytelling beats that make even the best Pixar movies, and a lot of movies by Pixar's competitors, feel too familiar. The best parts of it feel truly new, even as they channel previous animated classics (including the works of Hayao Miyazaki ) and explore situations and feelings that everyone has experienced to some degree.

The bulk of the film is set inside the brain of young Riley ( Kaitlyn Dias ), who's depressed about her mom and dad's decision to move them from Minnesota to San Francisco, separating her from her friends. Riley's emotions are determined by the interplay of five overtly "cartoonish" characters: Joy ( Amy Poehler ), a slender sprite-type who looks a little bit like Tinkerbell without the wings; Sadness (Phyllis Smith), who's soft and blue and recessive; Fear ( Bill Hader ), a scrawny, purple, bug-eyed character with question-mark posture; Disgust ( Mindy Kaling ), who's a rich green, and has a bit of a " Mean Girls " vibe; and Anger ( Lewis Black ), a flat-topped fireplug with devilish red skin and a middle-manager's nondescript slacks, fat tie and short-sleeved shirt. There's a master control room with a board that the five major emotions jostle against each other to control. Sometimes Joy is the dominant emotion, sometimes Fear, sometimes Sadness, etc., but never to the exclusion of the others. The controller hears what the other emotions are saying, and can't help but be affected by it.

The heroine's memories are represented by softball-sized spheres that are color-coded by dominant emotion (joy, sadness, fear and so forth), shipped from one mental location to another through a sort of vacuum tube-type system, then classified and stored as short-term memories or long-term memories, or tossed into an "abyss" that serves the same function here as the trash bin on a computer. ("Phone numbers?" grouses a worker in Riley's memory bank. "We don't need these. They're in her phone!") Riley's mental terrain has the jumbled, brightly colored, vacu-formed design of mass market toys or board games, with touches that suggest illustrated books, fantasy films (including Pixar's) and theme parks aimed at vacationing families (there are "islands" floating in mental space, dedicated to subjects that Riley thinks about a lot, like hockey). There's an imaginary boyfriend, a nonthreatening-teen-pop-idol type who proclaims, "I would die for Riley. I live in Canada." A "Train of Thought" that carries us through Riley's subconscious evokes one of those miniature trains you ride at zoos; it chugs through the air on rails that materialize in front of the train and disintegrate behind it.

The story kicks into gear when Riley attends her new school on the first day of fifth grade and flashes back to a memory that's color-coded as "joyful," but ends up being reclassified as "sad" when Sadness touches it and causes Riley to cry in front of her classmates. Sadness has done this once before; she and Joy are the two dominant emotions in the film. This makes sense when you think about how nostalgia—which is what Riley is mostly feeling as she remembers her Minnesota past—combines these two feelings. A struggle between Joy and Sadness causes "core memories" to be knocked from their containers and accidentally vacuumed up, along with the two emotions, and spat into the wider world of Riley's emotional interior. The rest of the film is a race to prevent these core memories from being, basically, deleted. Meanwhile, back at headquarters, Fear, Anger and Disgust are running the show.

It's worth pointing out here that all these characters and locations, as well as the supporting players that we meet inside Riley's brain, are figurative. They are visual representations of ineffable sensations, a bit like the characters and symbols on Tarot cards. And this is where "Inside Out" differs strikingly from other Pixar features. it is not, strictly speaking, fantasy or science fiction, categories that describe the rest of the company's output. It's more like an extended dream that interprets itself as it goes along, and it's rooted in reality. The world beyond Riley's mind looks pretty much like ours, though of course it's represented by stylized, computer-rendered drawings. Nothing happens there that could not happen in our world. Most of the action is of a type that a studio executive would call "low stakes": Riley struggles through her first day at a new school, gets frustrated by her mom and dad pushing her to buck up, storms to her room and pouts, etc.

The script draws clear connections between what happens to Riley in San Francisco (and what happened to her when she was little) and the figurative or metaphorical representations of those same experiences that we see inside her mind, a parallel universe of fond memories, repressed pain, and slippery associations. The most endearing and heartrending moments revolve around Bing-Bong ( Richard Kind ), the imaginary friend that Riley hasn't thought about in years. He's a creature of pure benevolence who only wants Riley to have fun and be happy. His body is made of cotton candy, he has a red wagon that can fly and that leaves a rainbow trail, and his serene acceptance of his obsolescence gives him a heroic dimension. He is a Ronin of positivity who still pledges allegiance to the Samurai that released him years ago.

Written by Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley from a story by Ronnie del Carmen and Pete Docter , and directed by Docter ("Monsters, Inc." and " Up "), "Inside Out" has the intricate interplay of image and sound that you've come to expect from Pixar. It also boasts the company's characteristic, three-leveled humor aimed at, respectively, very young children, older kids and adults, and pop culture buffs who are always on the lookout for a clever homage (a separate class of obsessive). There's nothing quite like hearing a theater packed with people laughing at the same gag for different reasons. A scene where Bing-Bong, Joy and Sadness race to catch the Train of Thought is exciting for all, thanks to the elegant way it's staged, and funny mainly because of the way Poehler, Smith and Kind say the lines. But adults will also appreciate the no-fuss way that it riffs on poetic and psychological concepts, and aficionados of the histories of animation and fine art will dig how the filmmakers tip their hats to other artistic schools. The characters get to Imagination Land by taking a shortcut through Abstract Thought, which turns them into barely-representational characters with smashed-up Cubist features, then mutates them into flat figurines that suggest characters in a 1960s short film by UPA, or an animation company based in Eastern Europe . There are very sly throwaway gags as well, like a character's comment that facts and opinions look "so similar," and a pair of posters glimpsed in a studio where dreams and nightmares are produced: "I'm Falling For a Very Long Time Into a Pit" and "I Can Fly!"

It's clear that the filmmakers have studied actual psychology, not the Hollywood movie version. The script initially seems as if it's favoring Joy's interpretation of what things mean, and what the other emotions ought to "do" for Riley. But soon we realize that Sadness has just as much of value to contribute, that Anger, Fear and Disgust are useful as well, and that none of them should be prized to the exclusion of the rest. The movie also shows how things can be remembered with joy, sadness, anger, fear or disgust, depending on where we are in the narrative of our lives and what part of a memory we fixate on. There's a great moment late in the story where we "swipe" through one of Riley's most cherished memories and see that it's not just sad or happy: it's actually very sad, then less sad, then finally happy. We might be reminded of Orson Welles' great observation, "If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story."

The film is even more remarkable for how it presents depression: so subtly but unmistakably that it never has to label it as depression. Riley is obviously depressed, and has good reason to be. The abyss where her core memories have been dumped is also a representation of depression. True to life, Riley stays in her personal abyss until she's ready to climb out of it. There's no magic cure that will make the pain go away. She just has to be patient, and feel loved.

A wise friend told me years ago that we have no control over our emotions, only over what we choose to do about them, and that even if we know this, it can still be hard to make good decisions, because our feelings are so powerful, and there are so many of them fighting to be heard. "Inside Out" gets this. It avoids the sorts of maddening, self-serving, binary statements that kids always hate hearing their parents spout: Things aren't so bad. You can decide to be happy. Look on the bright side. Even as we root for Riley to find a way out of her despair, we're never encouraged to think that she's just being childish, or that she wouldn't be taking everything so seriously if she were older. We feel for her, and with her. She contains multitudes.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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Film credits.

Inside Out (2015)

102 minutes

Amy Poehler as Joy (voice)

Mindy Kaling as Disgust (voice)

Bill Hader as Fear (voice)

Phyllis Smith as Sadness (voice)

Lewis Black as Anger (voice)

Kaitlyn Dias as Riley (voice)

Paris Van Dyke as Meg (voice)

Kyle MacLachlan as Dad (voice)

Pete Docter
Michael Giacchino
Meg LeFauve

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Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Inside Out — “Inside Out” Summary: Analysis of Emotions Depicted in The Movie

"Inside Out" Summary: Analysis of Emotions Depicted in The Movie

Categories: Animation Inside Out Movie Review

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Words: 1382 |

Published: Aug 6, 2021

Words: 1382 | Pages: 3 | 7 min read

Introduction, "inside out" movie review, "inside out" summary.

Emotion,Sadness,Psychology,Happiness,Emotions,Feeling,Depression,Riley Wuz Here

Works Cited

Docter, P. (Director), del Carmen, R. (Co-Director), & Rivera, J. (Writer). (2015). Inside Out [Motion picture]. Pixar Animation Studios.
Coates, J. (2015). Inside Out: The Essential Guide. DK Children.
Barraclough, L. (2015). Cannes: ‘Inside Out’ Director Pete Docter on Emotions, Memories and Child Actors. Variety. Retrieved from https://variety.com/2015/film/global/cannes-inside-out-director-pete-docter-on-emotions-memories-and-child-actors-1201498826/
Smith, L. (2015). Inside Out: Pixar’s New Film About the Voices Inside Your Head. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/21/inside-out-pixar-new-film-voices-inside-your-head-pete-docter
Hutt, D. (2015). How Disney/Pixar’s ‘Inside Out’ Became One of the Best Films of 2015. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhutt/2015/07/07/how-disneypixars-inside-out-became-one-of-the-best-films-of-2015/?sh=36b1949b4a3c
Kalat, D. (2015). Inside Out. Film Quarterly, 68(1), 100-101.
Thompson, B. (2015). Inside Out Review. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved from https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/inside-review-800219/
Corliss, R. (2015). Review: Inside Out Grows Up Without Growing Old. Time. Retrieved from https://time.com/3929148/review-inside-out/
Dargis, M. (2015). Review: In ‘Inside Out,’ a Young Girl’s Many Emotions Take the Wheel. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/movies/review-in-inside-out-a-young-girls-many-emotions-take-the-wheel.html
Edelstein, D. (2015). Inside Out Is the Best Movie Pixar Has Made in Years. Vulture. Retrieved from https://www.vulture.com/2015/06/movie-review-inside-out.html

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Inside Out review – an emotional rollercoaster

Pixar returns to form with a dazzlingly imaginative adventure set inside the mind of an 11-year-old girl

T he new Pixar animation Inside Out could easily have been called Out There. It’s as bizarre, imaginative and authentically psychedelic as anything produced in mainstream animation. At this point in the fortunes of the once-infallible creative powerhouse, you wouldn’t have bet on Pixar coming up with anything very outré. Bought by Disney in 2006, the studio hadn’t produced anything truly inspired that wasn’t a sequel since Up in 2009. Given the humdrum quality of Cars 2 and Monsters University and 2012’s well-intentioned but forgettable Brave , it seemed as if the studio had lost its penchant for exotic risk.

But Inside Out is in the top rank of Pixar productions with its combination of audacity, intelligence, wit and emotional reward. Directed and co-written by Pete Docter ( Monsters, Inc and Up ) and co-directed by Ronnie del Carmen, Inside Out starts from a boldly abstract premise: the narrative plays out within the psyche of a girl named Riley (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias) and the film’s characters are her feelings.

At the start, one of those feelings, Joy (Amy Poehler), asks: “Do you ever look at someone and wonder what is going on inside their head?” The next questions that arise are: what might such psychic events actually look like? And how might they generate a story that can be sustained for 102 minutes? Inside Out meets these challenges with an inventiveness that’s appropriately mind-boggling.

The film starts in a dark cavern, the Plato’s cave of the unformed self. As baby Riley is born, Joy spontaneously appears – a shimmering, big-eyed Tinkerbell-like pixie – and observes Riley’s view of the world on a glowing, cloud-like surveillance screen. Joy is soon joined by other emotions – Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger, the latter characterised as a squat red sponge that bursts into flame when provoked. These five monitor Riley’s life and produce her responses by operating a console of levers and buttons, something between the USS Enterprise and PlayStation 4. Inside Out explores much the same premise – little people busy working in your head – as the Beano ’s Numskulls strip, but it’s infinitely more sophisticated and distinctively female-skewed. The film’s real heroine is Joy, a pathologically upbeat micro-manager convinced that only positive feelings count – and Amy Poehler instils Joy with something of the obsessive girl guide eagerness of her Leslie Knope in the TV sitcom Parks and Recreation .

Then crisis comes as Riley, now 11, moves with her parents (Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan) from Minnesota to scary San Francisco, where a new school fills her with anguish and where, worst of all, pizzas come topped with broccoli. The ensuing narrative is set in the far reaches of Riley’s psychic landscape – and it is a landscape. Her trauma triggers the seismic collapse of the “personality islands” – literally, floating landmasses – that define who she is, devoted to such themes as family, friendship and hockey.

A control-room malfunction leaves Joy and Sadness wandering in a vast allegorical geography that includes such landmarks as imagination (a theme park) and the place where dreams are made: a movie studio, of course, where productions range from I’m Falling Down a Very Deep Pit to Fairy Dream Adventure Part 7. In the film’s wildest moment, the wanderers enter a zone of abstract thought, where they are zapped into a series of increasingly simplified geometric shapes, as they – and the film itself – dizzyingly self-deconstruct (“Oh no, we’re non-figurative!”).

Formidably ingenious, Inside Out hits an elusive sweet spot in terms of appealing to children and adults alike. It makes extraordinary use of knowing cuteness, for example. Take Bing Bong, Riley’s long-lost imaginary friend from early childhood, a cat-elephant hybrid made out of candyfloss. Here, the film seems to stray perilously into Jar Jar Binks territory – but while smaller children will warm to Bing Bong as a cuddly oddity, adults and older kids will see something quite troubling in a figure that’s manifestly a primitive creation of the infant mind, poignantly fated to extinction.

It’s in the way that the story depicts the fading of childhood’s mental furniture, and explores the mechanics of forgetting, that Inside Out achieves a universal significance. While specialists may bemoan the simplicity of the film’s mental model, inspired by the “psychoevolutionary” theory of Robert Plutchik, the eventual message – that sorrow is as valuable an emotion as happiness – is delivered with less piety than you might imagine.

As for the visual style, it’s dazzling, flouting CGI’s tendency to photorealism in favour of overt cartoonishness in a 1950s retro vein, together with a refined exploration of light: the emotions are composed of fibrous bundles of luminescence. The running gags are delicious (don’t miss the end credits), and in the best Pixar fashion, Inside Out expertly but uncynically tugs the heartstrings – and indeed, the film’s theme overtly shows you how it’s done. Don’t be afraid to come out of Inside Out wiping a tear from your eye: you can always say: “It was the little people in my head that did it.”

The Observer
Animation in film
Kyle MacLachlan

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Inside Out: Emotional Truths by Way of Pixar

"inside out" proves true to cognitive, developmental, and clinical psychology..

Posted June 24, 2015 | Reviewed by Kaja Perina

Dr. Janina Scarlet reviewed the film Inside Out and wanted to share her thoughts with Psychology Today readers. by Janina Scarlet

Inside Out is a movie I’d been waiting for a year to see and, once again, Pixar did not disappoint. This is a movie I’m going to be assigning to many of my patients and doctoral students as a way to demonstrate important psychological principles.

Warning: some spoilers of the movie ahead.

The movie is about an 11-year-old girl, Riley, originally from Minnesota, who moves to San Francisco with her parents. The leading characters of the movie, however, aren’t Riley and her family, but Riley’s primary emotions: Happiness (Joy), Sadness, Fear , Anger , and Disgust. These emotions demonstrate what it might be like in the mind of an 11-year-old girl who struggles with having to move to a different city, away from her friends, away from her hockey league, and has a hard time pretending to be happy for her parents.

What’s really powerful about this film is how accurate it is to cognitive, developmental, and clinical psychology. The 5 emotions used in this film are in fact 5 of the 6 scientifically validated universal emotions (the 6th one being surprise). Psychologist and scientist, Paul Ekman, is most known for his work with universal emotions as he traveled around the world and found that these were present in every culture and presented in the same way through the same facial expressions around the world. Ekman’s work has been used for psychology research, as well as for the US government, and even inspired the popular television series, ‘Lie to Me’.

Other concepts displayed in this movie included the conversion of short to long-term memory . When a memory is seen as salient or relevant enough to us, or when it has been repeated enough times, the brain messengers, dopamine and glutamate, ensure the long-term encoding of that memory. Think of these messengers as computer coders or awesome IT support team – they write the code to ensure that our brain computer is up to date with the new information. Other concepts briefly covered in the movie include psychological changes of reaching/approaching puberty , psychological stressors, family psychology, inductive and deductive reasoning (thinking like Sherlock Holmes by using logic, reasoning, and observation to reach a conclusion), and many others.

Of all 5 of Riley’s emotions, Joy seems to be the leader, she keeps the others in check but reminds the viewers that all of them have an important function. She states that Disgust keeps Riley safe from being poisoned, Fear keeps her safe from a catastrophe by imagining worst case scenarios, Anger protects her from others and also allows her to be a better hockey player, while Joy ensures that Riley is happy. However, Joy fails to see the importance of Sadness and tries to shoo Sadness away from anything Riley-related, forbidding this emotion in every way possible. She even draws a circle on the floor and makes Sadness stay inside it, forbidding her to leave or to touch any of Riley’s memories, so as not to taint them with sad memories.

As if Riley’s mind trying to keep Sadness at bay wasn’t enough, Riley’s parents put an additional pressure on her, especially when her mother asks her to “keep smiling” for her dad. Essentially, Riley’s mom, without meaning to do so, communicates to Riley that being sad about the move was not ok and that she needs to pretend to be happy to support her father through this.

Unfortunately, Joy’s good intentions backfire when Riley is unable to receive the support she so desperately needs to help her with adjusting to her new environment. In fact, Riley initially seems to be having symptoms of an Adjustment Disorder with Depressed Mood, where she has a hard time coping with her move, she withdraws from her parents and old friends, she misses school, and even tries to run away. By being unable to experience her sadness about all these changes and pretending that she was ok, Riley ends up being angry, anxious, and irritable, getting into a fight with her parents and her best friend, before shutting down altogether. In fact, it looks like Riley’s potential Adjustment Disorder might have turned into a full-blown Major Depressive Episode. (I’m saying, “might have” because in order to be diagnosed, the symptoms need to have lasted for 2 weeks or more, and we don’t know how long Riley’s symptoms actually lasted).

What messages does this movie send to its viewers?

Many, actually, but perhaps the most important one is this – our emotions are all important, every single one of them. They all serve an important function and we cannot selectively feel some but not others. It’s an “all-or-none” deal. If we numb sadness, we also numb joy. We need to openly experience all our emotions, and that includes sadness, as painful as it may be sometimes. Sadness allows for connection, when we see someone else feeling sad, we might feel sad too (this emotion is called empathy) and might want to alleviate their sadness (this is compassion). When we stay with this individual and share our emotions together, the resonating effect can produce a healing experience. That is exactly what we see when Sadness comforts Riley’s imaginary friend, Bing Bong, and also when Riley is able to share her sadness with her parents.

In fact, when we are sad, our body and facial expression cue the people around us that we need help – the tears running down our face, the pupil dilation, the non-threatening posture, all of this signals others that we could use some support. And at the same time, the people around us might then experience a bitter-sweet sensation of compassion, caused by an activation of the compassion centers of our brain (the insula and the anterior cingulate cortex, among other structures), and the warmth of the heart caused by a release of a special “cuddle” hormone , oxytocin (so called because it is released when we want to or are in the process of hugging someone, or similar actions).

The movie doesn’t stop there; it ends with a bang by reminding us that we can experience multiple (and even contradictory) emotions at the same time, such as happiness and sadness. The movie also shows that everyone experiences these emotions, as they are, in fact, universal. This demonstrates a psychological concept of common humanity, or the idea that other people are just like us, they might struggle with the same emotions, insecurities, heartbreaks, and neuroses as we do, further validating our internal experiences.

Overall, ‘Inside Out’ was amazing. I highly recommend it and would love to hear your opinions on it.

Dr. Janina Scarlet is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, a scientist, and a full time geek. She uses Superhero Therapy to help patients with anxiety , depression , chronic pain , and PTSD at the Center for Stress and Anxiety Management and Sharp Memorial Hospital. Dr. Scarlet also teaches at Alliant International University, San Diego. Her book, Superhero Therapy, is expected to be released in July 2016 with Little, Brown Book Group.

Original post at Superhero Therapy: Psychology of "Inside Out." Shared at the author's request, with permission.

Travis Langley, Ph.D. , a professor at Henderson State University, is the author of Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight.

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Review by Brian Eggert June 19, 2015

Ever feel conflicted or behave in a way you normally wouldn’t? Maybe you even hear the voices in your head arguing about what to do next or how to react in a particular situation. And if those voices belonged to actual functionaries within the complex metropolis of your mind, what would they look like? Traditionally, an angel sits on one shoulder and a devil on the other, and together they personify our conscience. But the human mind is much more complicated than a basic good-evil dichotomy. Everyone is a sum of their experiences, memory, and basic (and often not-so-basic) emotions. Such conceptual thoughts are the material of Inside Out , a marvelous animated film that exists almost entirely within the theoretical space inside our heads, operating by abstract rules and an uncanny understanding of human emotion. Returning to form, Pixar Animation Studios explores the high-concept notion of our inner voices in director Pete Docter’s ( Monsters, Inc. , Up ) new film, and delivers one of their most inventive, affecting releases.

The story follows Riley (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias), a tomboyish 11-year-old girl who, along with her parents (Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan), moves from Minnesota to San Francisco. The move comes with no end of unexpected obstacles for Riley, including a long-delayed moving van, a difficult first day at school, a botched hockey tryout, and she even contemplates running away. Although not much happens to Riley on the outside—beyond the not-inconsiderable stress of moving, of course— inside is another story. Within the mission control of Riley’s mind, her behavior and feelings are controlled by five central emotions: Joy (Amy Poehler), a yellow-glowing bundle of delight; Anger (Lewis Black), a boxy red fella with a fiery temper; Fear (Bill Hader), a purple, panicky master of probability; Disgust (Mindy Kaling), a green socialite; and Sadness (Phyllis Smith), a bespectacled sack of gloom. In Riley’s otherwise pleasant life, Joy commands her fellow emotions as a natural leader, glimmering with positive energy.

But Riley’s mind is a complicated network of departmental structures and libraries of memory. As any emotion may take over at any given moment, the dominant emotion creates a memory orb, each of which glow in the color of the emotion that created it. Hundreds are created every day. Five core memory orbs form Riley’s personality, represented by five islands or centers for her psyche: Family, Friendship, Honesty, Goofball, and Hockey. At her relatively young age, Riley’s psyche is somewhat uncomplicated and will grow more intricate in the future, establishing additional islands. For now, the move has made Sadness a little touchy, in that she’s been touching happy memories and transforming them into sad ones. For example, once-positive thoughts of Minnesota now become aching memories of better times. To counteract Sadness’ sudden contamination of memories, Joy, with Sadness behind her, heads out of the control room and into the wilds of Riley’s mind to set things straight and make Riley happy again. But then, this leaves Anger, Disgust, and Fear in control.

Not everything about Riley is encompassed by these five emotions, as Joy and Sadness soon learn. Outside of the control room, there’s a “train of thought” that appears as a locomotive chugging along on tracks, which appear before it and disappear behind it. Among long shelves of countless memory orbs, workers dispose of fading memories, dumping them into a vast abyss, never to be remembered again. These ingenious concepts and inventions have been articulated within the script by Docter, Meg LeFauve, and Josh Cooley, and visualized by the Pixar staff to wonderful effect. Among the most clever is Bing Bong (Richard Kind), Riley’s imaginary friend who leads Joy and Sadness into a chamber of abstract thought, where they’re broken down, piece by piece, into shapes, two dimensions, and finally, the impression of color. Elsewhere, Joy and Sadness step into Riley’s dream factory, a setup not unlike a movie studio lot; they also venture into her clown-infested unconscious, where her deepest fears are locked away. These ideas may sound complicated, but they’re explained in such a breezy, effortless way that the audience cannot help but instantly grasp them, and more importantly, identify with them.

Of course, Joy attempts to dominate every moment in the service of Riley, denying Sadness every opportunity to resolve the situation. This resourceful metaphor for repression plays out in an imaginative way that only Pixar could conceive, in a mental landscape informed by an 11-year-old mind. By holding up a positive front and denying one’s feelings, the mind becomes a conflicted and crushing place; and if maintained long enough, a person could fall apart. This insightful theme finds an entertaining way to tell viewers, young and old, how to acknowledge their emotions, pleasant or not. Typically unpleasant emotions can be helpful if expressed in the right way, just as positive emotions can be damaging if they deny authentic feelings. What better place to investigate this dynamic than in the confused head of a youngster? More than just exploring the personification of emotions and inner-workings of a mental state, the film also explores the strange and confusing time during the onset of adolescence. (As a result, we can’t help but imagine what an adulthood version of Inside Out might look like.)

Inside Out beautifully transforms emotional conflict into an adventure, a surreal look at the internal machinations that encompass why we feel the way we do. Meanwhile, tender scenes in the real world range from blissful to bittersweet, from tragic to downright devastating. Varying animation styles depict the two worlds as cartoonish and realistic, respectively. And yet, the material retains an accessible emotional center to which young children and adults will identify. Quite refreshingly, Inside Out does not limit its investigation of this concept to Riley. Brief glimpses into her parents’ minds offer a perceptive look at how the mind operates. Consider a funny bit where Riley’s mother remembers a hunky Latino man and, despite loving her husband, her Fear emotion hangs onto that memory, “Just in case.” Riley’s father is guided by a seemingly inept grouping of control room emotions. The best of these asides occurs during the end credits, where Docter takes us into the minds of an insecure teen, a moody pizza place clerk, and even pets (the look into a cat’s mind offers the film’s most gut-busting laugh).

Most impressive is Inside Out ‘s embrace of sadness and melancholy as essential components of a person’s emotional growth. This represents a wholly unique perspective for an animated film, in that most cheery efforts from Dreamworks or Disney resolve to be escapist, bright, overly optimistic larks devoid of real emotional underpinnings. But this film recognizes the need for sadness as a necessity for self-understanding and empathy, for emotional development and maturing. Inside Out challenges the viewer with aching turns in the plot, putting us through the same ringer as Riley. Without sadness, there is no recognition of longing, no artistic yearning, no desire for self-exploration—and this is a film that demands self-exploration out of its audience, beginning with Riley, but lasting long after the film is over. It will change how you think about your feelings, and perhaps even recalibrate how you visualize what’s going on in your head. That Pixar has released a film acknowledging the need to be attuned to your emotional state is a bold testament to their sophistication, not only as an animation studio, but also as storytellers.

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Review: Inside Out Takes a Mind-Blowing Trip Inside the Brain

Joy and Sadness represent two of the emotions clashing in a little girl’s mind.

T he most profound—as well as profoundly good —Pixar movies are the ones that seem the least plausible as story pitches. Consider Up (crushed by encroaching development, old man flies away with his house) and WALL-E (environmental wasteland, nice robot). Now, there’s Inside Out , which defies the conventions of family movies by being an animated comedy about brain chemistry and situational depression.

That makes it perhaps the craziest movie Pixar has ever come up with. Imagine Fellini using animation to create a narrative starring the limbic system, with diversions to the subconscious (“where they take all the troublemakers”), treacherous trips into abstract thinking and rides on the highly erratically scheduled train of thought. From a story hatched by co-directors Peter Docter ( Up, Monsters, Inc. ) and Ronaldo del Carmen, Inside Out is nearly hallucinogenic, entirely beautiful and easily the animation studio’s best release since 2010’s Toy Story 3. Stylistically Inside Out is nothing like Richard Linklater’s Boyhood , but for its scope in examining the maturation process, it might well be called Childhood .

The central human character is an 11 year-old only child named Riley Anderson (voiced by Kaityn Dias) who loves hockey and her parents, but the story is mainly told from the perspective of five core human emotions. Joy, sadness, anger, fear and disgust are all depicted as characters that live within Riley. (Usually scientists go with happy when they’re talking about emotions, but Joy makes a better name for anyone voiced by Amy Poehler. Talk about type-casting; you wonder if the movie was built around her Parks and Recreation persona). These five characters move in and out of control of the central keyboard of Riley’s brain until a crisis is set in motion by the Anderson family’s relocation from Minnesota to San Francisco. While the movers dawdle and Dad’s “investors” jerk his startup chain, the Andersons live in an empty, narrow, dirty house. (Even the perkiest real estate agent would stretch to call this a Victorian, but in the nation’s hottest real estate market, it probably cost at least $1.5 million.)

No wonder Riley has trouble summoning her joy, especially facing a new school. Sadness (the wonderful Phyllis Smith, from The Office ), blue-skinned and bound up in a tight turtleneck sweater, keeps touching and thus sullying all the old good memories; soon, Anger (Lewis Black) moves into the driver’s seat, with Fear (Bill Hader) hovering near by and Disgust (Mindy Kahling) snarking from the other side. Riley plunges into a depression and the movie becomes a race against time as her good memories crumble and misery closes in. In the Pixar vision of depression, Joy and Riley’s imaginary friend from her earliest years, Bing Bong (Richard Kind) are reduced to tiny pinpoints, bright lights in sea of coal-colored thoughts and memories. They have to literally climb over the misery to get out.

The brain itself has components that look like a giant gumball machine. Riley’s various islands of personality (friends, family, hockey) could be the kind of alien outpost where Han Solo has drinks. There is an abyss, naturally, but overall this is a place of little order and great mystery, which you might not expect from Pixar, given its propensity for explaining away say, the sources of scary dreams ( Monsters, Inc .). To be lost in its bowels is terrifying even for perky Joy. One of the movie’s best gags is the snoring, red-nosed hulk hidden away in the subconscious. To see the complexity of the human brain laid out in animation, right down to arching pathways of light that look a lot like synapses, is mind-blowing in the same way Fantasia is mind-blowing.

But what makes the movie so rich and enlightening, even for an adult well acquainted with their own blue periods, is the depiction of emotions not as at war with each other but rather in a constant juggling act to keep their human going. Riley’s mother and father, voiced by Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan, have their own five-character emotion parade. It is true that Riley’s Disgust eggs on Anger, and that Joy, a bossy hedonist, would rather Sadness stay within the chalk circle she draws for her. But the emotions are all in this together, in support of Riley. One of Inside Out’s great triumphs is Joy’s dawning realization about the need for balance and the gifts that unmasked Sadness can bring, including the support of one’s loved ones.

Sadness is of course, particularly well suited to movie theaters, which are great places to cry. (As Joy urges Sadness to get out of her funk, she keeps reminding her of “that funny movie where the dog died”). Which brings me to a sidenote: For four years I shared a movie beat with TIME’s legendary critic Richard Corliss, who died in April. Richard could be territorial. A Pixar movie was a bone he never wanted to give up (unless, well… Cars 2 ). For me Inside Out was tinged with sadness that he is no longer here to see it. What would he have loved best? The sly joke that Anger is the designated newspaper reader in the group? (Choice headline: “Replaced! No Friends for Riley!”) Or the way Riley’s memory service team clears out all her piano lessons except for “Chopsticks” and “Heart and Soul?” Or perhaps the wistful lyrical pas de deux when Joy dances to one of Riley’s favorite memories of skating on a frozen Minnesota lake? Yes, to all of them, the sorrow and the joy.

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The Science of ‘Inside Out’

By Dacher Keltner and Paul Ekman

July 3, 2015

FIVE years ago, the writer and director Pete Docter of Pixar reached out to us to talk over an idea for a film, one that would portray how emotions work inside a person’s head and at the same time shape a person’s outer life with other people. He wanted to do this all in the mind of an 11-year-old girl as she navigated a few difficult days in her life.

As scientists who have studied emotion for decades, we were delighted to be asked. We ended up serving as scientific consultants for the movie, “Inside Out,” which was recently released.

Our conversations with Mr. Docter and his team were generally about the science related to questions at the heart of the film: How do emotions govern the stream of consciousness? How do emotions color our memories of the past? What is the emotional life of an 11-year-old girl like? (Studies find that the experience of positive emotions begins to drop precipitously in frequency and intensity at that age.)

“Inside Out” is about how five emotions — personified as the characters Anger, Disgust, Fear, Sadness and Joy — grapple for control of the mind of an 11-year-old girl named Riley during the tumult of a move from Minnesota to San Francisco. (One of us suggested that the film include the full array of emotions now studied in science, but Mr. Docter rejected this idea for the simple reason that the story could handle only five or six characters.)

Riley’s personality is principally defined by Joy, and this is fitting with what we know scientifically. Studies find that our identities are defined by specific emotions, which shape how we perceive the world, how we express ourselves and the responses we evoke in others.

But the real star of the film is Sadness, for “Inside Out” is a film about loss and what people gain when guided by feelings of sadness. Riley loses friends and her home in her move from Minnesota. Even more poignantly, she has entered the preteen years, which entails a loss of childhood.

We do have some quibbles with the portrayal of sadness in “Inside Out.” Sadness is seen as a drag, a sluggish character that Joy literally has to drag around through Riley’s mind. In fact, studies find that sadness is associated with elevated physiological arousal, activating the body to respond to loss. And in the film, Sadness is frumpy and off-putting. More often in real life, one person’s sadness pulls other people in to comfort and help.

Those quibbles aside, however, the movie’s portrayal of sadness successfully dramatizes two central insights from the science of emotion.

First, emotions organize — rather than disrupt — rational thinking. Traditionally, in the history of Western thought, the prevailing view has been that emotions are enemies of rationality and disruptive of cooperative social relations.

But the truth is that emotions guide our perceptions of the world, our memories of the past and even our moral judgments of right and wrong, most typically in ways that enable effective responses to the current situation. For example, studies find that when we are angry we are acutely attuned to what is unfair, which helps animate actions that remedy injustice.

We see this in “Inside Out.” Sadness gradually takes control of Riley’s thought processes about the changes she is going through. This is most evident when Sadness adds blue hues to the images of Riley’s memories of her life in Minnesota. Scientific studies find that our current emotions shape what we remember of the past. This is a vital function of Sadness in the film: It guides Riley to recognize the changes she is going through and what she has lost, which sets the stage for her to develop new facets of her identity.

Second, emotions organize — rather than disrupt — our social lives. Studies have found, for example, that emotions structure (not just color) such disparate social interactions as attachment between parents and children, sibling conflicts, flirtations between young courters and negotiations between rivals.

Other studies find that it is anger (more so than a sense of political identity) that moves social collectives to protest and remedy injustice. Research that one of us has conducted has found that expressions of embarrassment trigger others to forgive when we’ve acted in ways that momentarily violate social norms.

This insight, too, is dramatized in the movie. You might be inclined to think of sadness as a state defined by inaction and passivity — the absence of any purposeful action. But in “Inside Out,” as in real life, sadness prompts people to unite in response to loss. We see this first in an angry outburst at the dinner table that causes Riley to storm upstairs to lie alone in a dark room, leaving her dad to wonder what to do.

And toward the end of the film, it is Sadness that leads Riley to reunite with her parents, involving forms of touch and emotional sounds called “vocal bursts” — which one of us has studied in the lab — that convey the profound delights of reunion.

“Inside Out” offers a new approach to sadness. Its central insight: Embrace sadness, let it unfold, engage patiently with a preteen’s emotional struggles. Sadness will clarify what has been lost (childhood) and move the family toward what is to be gained: the foundations of new identities, for children and parents alike.

Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Paul Ekman is a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California, San Francisco.

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Movie Review: Inside Out

The movie Inside Out is about an 11-year old girl Riley, who faces the first difficult situation of her life when her parents decide to move from Minnesota to California. The moviemakers have tried to show in an interesting manner the feelings she has throughout the whole experience. The five feelings, in fact, are animated characters: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust. At a particular moment, one of these five characters take hold of the young girl's mind and she starts engaging in certain behaviors resulting from that feeling. While watching the movie, we realized it relates to the lectures on Conflict, especially Intrapersonal Conflict in several ways. Most prominent is the intrapersonal conflict she faces when her expectations of life (or Shoulds, as Karen Horney would put it) meet with the reality of life. First time this happens when the Anderson family reaches their new home in San Francisco and it does not look anything like the ones expected by Riley. The journey itself is not the most pleasant experience of Riley's life, and when Disgust sarcastically remarks "Why don't we live in the smelly car, we have already been inside it for like forever", Joy is quick at pointing out "Which is actually good since it gave us time to think about how our new house is going to look like". This practice of fantasizing about the future house in itself might not be the most productive one, but the point was to distract Riley from focusing on the negative. This somehow resonates with the idea that we discussed in class while talking about the ABC model, that if you are stuck and know that you cannot get out of it for a while, instead of crying over it, accept it and use that time to do something productive instead. Joy seems to have understood Aaron Beck's idea that the degree to which one gets dissatisfied from a situation depends upon how one processes the thoughts and beliefs about that situation, and hence always tries to find the silver lining. It is interesting how throughout the movie, Joy keeps focusing on the positive in each situation no matter how miserable it appears to be. In Joy's own words, "You can't always focus on what's going wrong. There is always a way to turn things around, to find the fun." Joy also appears to be aware of the idea that we cannot change the world events (or situations that we do not have control over), but we can always change the way we think about them. When Riley enters her new room and Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust start recording their respective memories, Joy proposes the prospect of thinking about how to decorate the room. Similarly, when afterwards Riley learns that the moving van (which had all her stuff) was not going to be arriving any time soon, Joy introduces the idea of spending time playing hockey with a crumbled paper instead of worrying. These actions do not change the facts, but they certainly induce a positive emotion in Riley's mind. Hence, these activities can be seen as direct mood enhancing behaviors which really helped. From the prism of CBT, in effect, Riley's expectations (shoulds) of new house when clashed with the reality, created intrapersonal conflict for her. When she first enters the house, antecedent (new house) hit with belief (

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‘inside out’: what the critics are saying.

Riley's emotions — Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness — must navigate new territory after she moves to San Francisco in the family-friendly Pixar film.

By Paulina Jayne Isaac

Paulina Jayne Isaac

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Inside Out has 11-year-old Riley experiencing of an array of emotions — from Joy ( Amy Poehler ) to Sadness ( Phyllis Smith ) — after leaving her Midwestern town for life in the Bay Area.

Written and directed by Pete Docter ( Up), Pixar’s first release in two years is set to earn $60 million in its domestic debut , in line with other high-grossing Pixar films.

Read what top critics are saying about Inside Out :

The Hollywood Reporter ‘s Todd McCarthy says the film “serves up some abstractions and flights of deconstructive fancy that will most likely go over the heads of viewers with ages in the single digits. But this adventurous outing manages the great Pixar trick of operating on two levels — captivating fun for kids, disarming smarts for adults — that sets the studio apart. Reliably big summer grosses appear in store.”

He adds, “ Poehler’s energetic voicing of Joy dominates the dialogue , and quite agreeably so. All the other voice actors blend in nicely without being too eccentric — Bill Hader portrays Fear, Mindy Kaling is Disgust, Lewis Black is Anger and Smith is the unassertive but undeniable Sadness. Among the ‘real’ characters, Kaitlyn Dias plays Riley, Diane Lane is Mom and Kyle MacLachlan is Dad.

“In a cheeky move on the part of Bay Area-based Pixar, San Francisco is, for once, portrayed in a negative light (the family’s new home is located on a cramped, dingy downtown street). As usual with the company’s fare, there are plenty of blink-and-they’re-gone jokes, including the depiction of the part of the brain that creates dreams as a movie studio.”

The New York Times ‘ A.O. Scott writes, “The achievement of Inside Out is at once subtler and more impressive. This is a movie almost entirely populated by abstract concepts moving through theoretical space. This world is both radically new — you’ve never seen anything like it — and instantly recognizable, as familiar aspects of consciousness are given shape and voice. Remember your imaginary childhood friend? Your earliest phobias? Your strangest dreams? You will, and you will also have a newly inspired understanding of how and why you remember those things. You will look at the screen and know yourself.”

Los Angeles Times’ Kenneth Turan calls it “even better, as in the best of Pixar, are thoughts and insights about the human experience. Though it doesn’t seem that way at first, the five emotions are not rivals jousting for power and control; they are united by wanting the best for Riley. And when Joy begins to understand the value and purpose of Sadness, that leads to moments no one is going to forget.”

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Inventive, gorgeously animated, and powerfully moving, Inside Out is another outstanding addition to the Pixar library of modern animated classics. Read critic reviews

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Inside out videos, inside out photos.

Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) is a happy, hockey-loving 11-year-old Midwestern girl, but her world turns upside-down when she and her parents move to San Francisco. Riley's emotions -- led by Joy (Amy Poehler) -- try to guide her through this difficult, life-changing event. However, the stress of the move brings Sadness (Phyllis Smith) to the forefront. When Joy and Sadness are inadvertently swept into the far reaches of Riley's mind, the only emotions left in Headquarters are Anger, Fear and Disgust.

Rating: PG (Some Action|Mild Thematic Elements)

Genre: Kids & family, Comedy, Fantasy, Animation

Original Language: English

Director: Pete Docter

Producer: Jonas Rivera

Writer: Pete Docter , Meg LeFauve , Josh Cooley

Release Date (Theaters): Jun 19, 2015 wide

Release Date (Streaming): Nov 3, 2015

Box Office (Gross USA): $2.0M

Runtime: 1h 35m

Distributor: Walt Disney

Production Co: Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures

Sound Mix: Dolby Atmos, Datasat

View the collection: Pixar

Cast & Crew

Amy Poehler

Phyllis Smith

Sadness Voice

Richard Kind

Bing Bong Voice

Lewis Black

Anger Voice

Mindy Kaling

Disgust Voice

Kaitlyn Dias

Riley Voice

Riley's Mother Voice

Kyle MacLachlan

Riley's Father Voice

Pete Docter

Ronnie del Carmen

Co-Director

Screenwriter

Meg LeFauve

Josh Cooley

Jonas Rivera

Patrick Lin

Cinematographer

Kevin Nolting

Film Editing

Michael Giacchino

Original Music

Ralph Eggleston

Production Design

Kevin Reher

Natalie Lyon

News & Interviews for Inside Out

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Critic Reviews for Inside Out

Audience reviews for inside out.

Widely original, funny and powerful all at the same time, Inside Out is a very strong showing from Pixar - and one that cements Pixar as the geniuses of this era of filmmaking.

I may not be the target audience for Inside Out, but I know when Pixar is on form, and Inside Out meets the criteria. Given that the last Pixar movie I watched was Cars 2, I'm sure you can forgive me for being nervous going in to this latest effort. Thankfully, Inside Out completely dissuaded me of my fears, and brought forth a very message-centric film that is still entertaining for all those young and old.

Funny, heart-warming, original. The best film by Pixar in years!

Maybe the best animated movies I've ever seen, 'Inside Out' is very creative and touching at the same time. It makes you think about everything that could be going on inside the mind of a child when she's going through difficult adjustments in her life, and more generally, what goes on inside all of us. I'm not sure why the film has drawn such ire from some viewers, maybe it's just one of those love/hate movies, or maybe you (or a loved one) have to have gone through a serious struggle to have it resonate. I loved the poignant scenes of leaving childhood memories behind (wow! these were just stunning to me), and how the somewhat unlikely hero turned out to be little Sadness.

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Inside Out Review

23 Jul 2015

104 minutes

Pixar is the owner of cinema’s most famous brain trust, a group of wildly different personalities who come together to shape adolescent (and grown-up) hearts and minds through the power of storytelling. It is perhaps surprising, then, that they have taken so long to make Inside Out , a film about a literal brain trust, this one controlling the heart and mind of a kid on the brink of adolescence. What Pete Docter, the driving force behind Monsters, Inc. and Up , and co-director Ronnie del Carmen have done is make a film about what it feels like to be 11 years old, with all the shifting sensations and certainties that entails, through the prism of duelling emotions embodied in lovable cartoon forms. If the idea of dramatising inner lives in animation has precedents, few films have explored the concept with the wit, brio and profound pathos Docter, del Carmen and co. conjure up.

To be sure, Inside Out has trace elements of previous Pixar flicks. It has the mismatched pairings, a support team working to ensure a child’s happiness, the fascination with working practices, and a journey to get home that have figured in the studio’s work for years. But there is freshness here. Inside Out features passages that offer untethered flights of imagination, full of bravura, wit, surealism and invention that touch base with everything from Hieronymus Bosch to Tex Avery. At times it makes Yellow Submarine look like Coronation Street.

The exterior story is a simple one: tomboyish 11-year-old Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) is uprooted from her idyllic hockey-playing life in rural Minnesota after her dad lands a demanding job in downtown San Francisco. But it’s Riley’s inner space that is buzzing. Yellow manic pixie dream girl Joy (a buoyant Amy Poehler) has ruled the roost, keeping the other emotions, Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black) and Disgust (Mindy Kaling) in check. But with all the change (the move, puberty), Sadness is on the rise.

What’s great here is the simple, lucid logic the screenplay imbues into the set-up. The Emotions dictate Riley’s feelings in a shiny space-age HQ dominated by an enormous control panel — Pixar is enamoured with such consoles: Lifted built a whole short film around one — and festooned with tubes and shelves where memories are moved and stored as gold orbs. The pillars that Riley’s life is built on, such as friendship, hockey and family, are represented as floating islands like the areas in a theme park. It’s one of Docter and del Carmen’s magic tricks that they let us luxuriate and play in this world without letting the pace and urgency of the storytelling flag.

The inciting incident that sees these pillars begin to crumble is a crisis during Riley’s first day at a new school, ejecting Sadness and Joy from HQ into the darkest recesses of Riley’s mind. Here the movie becomes an odd-couple road trip as the pair travel through Long Term Memory, Abstract Thought (here Joy and Sadness are pulled into different iterations of modern art) and Dream Production (realised as an old-school Hollywood studio system), hooking up with Riley’s long-forgotten, elephant-like imaginary friend, Bing Bong (Richard Kind). As they try to make their way back to base, the wit and imagination on show here is simply staggering.

Yet Docter and del Carmen don’t get lost in their fantasy creations. They always keep front and centre the impact of the travails of Joy and Sadness on Riley’s life, making sure it doesn’t become too abstract to be unrelatable. The most affecting human in a Pixar film since Up’s Carl Fredricksen, Riley is a likable pre-teen, trying her best to be strong for her busy-at-work dad while struggling to juggle the newness that has just entered her life. To underline the point, the two worlds are visually poles apart. Inside Riley’s head is an explosion of colour, a riot of vibrancy. Outside Riley’s world, San Francisco is colourless and dull, muted by a permanent Bay-area fog.

It might be a film that will happily exist as a fast food tie-in or an amusement park spin-off but there is underplayed profundity and ambition here. Ultimately it’s a film that dares to dramatise human nature, respecting the complex play of burgeoning emotions and illustrating the role sadness plays in turning children into adolescents. It’s as poignant a portrayal of the loss of innocence as we’ve seen all year.

The arguments will rage over whether Inside Out represents the absolute pinnacle of Pixar. Some ( Toy Story ) debatably have richer characters. Others ( Up ) may have deeper reservoirs of feeling. But if you cherish the studio for coming up with bold, original, funny, emotionally resonant ideas executed beautifully, then Inside Out delivers in spades. Perhaps we should be grateful that Pixar came up with the idea at all: if it were Michael Haneke we might have been in for a toon about Self-Loathing, Ennui, Angst, Gloom And Dejection fighting for control of a dying Austrian grandmother. Innen Nach Außen, anyone?

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Inside Out Review

Updated 29 August 2022

Subject Movies

Downloads 60

Category Entertainment

Topic Inside Out

Inside Out is a 2015 American computer animated film directed by Pete Docter. The movie stars Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Richard Kind, Bill Hader, Mindy Kaling, Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan, and more. It explores a child's struggles to adapt to his new environment. In addition to being a fun movie for kids, Inside Out teaches about the full spectrum of emotions.Inside Out is a Pixar film In Inside Out, the five major emotions are personified by a preteen girl. This is an incredibly touching film, which explores how feelings affect a person, and is a great example of the blending of emotions in Pixar films. The characters in this film are believable and realistic, and the chemistry between Amy Poehler and Bill Hader is exceptional. As the movie moves forward, the audience will be able to identify with Riley, her family, and her friends.It portrays a child's struggle to cope with a new environment The film Inside Out is a moving and witty portrayal of a child's struggles to adjust to a new environment. Its portrayal of the emotions and the way a child copes with these feelings is both realistic and enlightening. This touching and insightful film has content for both children and adults. It never gets corny or complex, and its themes are universal enough to appeal to any audience.It explores the full spectrum of emotions Inside Out explores the full spectrum of emotions. The film is based on the research of psychologist Paul Ekman, who explains that humans experience all types of emotions, from anger to sadness, and how each can be experienced in different ways. The film is a fun ride through the human experience, but it can also be a challenging one. In Inside Out, we meet the lovable Joy, who teeters on the edge of gratingness. It's interesting to watch the gratification of Joy, but it's also a commentary on the unhelpfulness of happiness.It uses metaphors Inside Out is a great movie for children to learn about the importance of metaphor. The metaphor of the mind is a powerful tool to help kids understand the importance of mental health. In the movie, Joy and Sadness explore Riley's subconscious mind and descend into a dark cave like abyss. The metaphor of the mind is a great tool to teach children how the mind works and how our actions affect our emotions.It is a Pixar film Inside Out is a Pixar film that takes viewers on a wild ride of emotion and wacky humor. This animation studio's style is groundbreaking, and its stories are powerful and poignant, with a balance of childlike wonder and wry sarcasm. Inside Out is Pixar's first film since "Monsters University" in 2013, and it surpasses its predecessor in terms of technical achievement and emotional pull.It stars Amy Poehler "Inside Out" is a computer animated film directed by Pete Docter and written by Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley. Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Bill Hader, Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan, and Mindy Kaling star in the movie. To learn more about the movie, read on. It will be released on June 17, 2015.It is set in a classroom When watching a movie like Inside Out, keep in mind the different worlds the characters inhabit. These worlds are often different from each other, so you can use the images from the movie to educate your students. For example, if you have a classroom, you can use the images to explain the layout and characters of that classroom. You can also use the images to discuss different emotions. Once you've explained the two worlds, ask your students what they felt.It depicts emotions as marbles The movie Inside Out illustrates emotions as marbles, each with its own personality. The movie is based on the work of psychologist Robert Plutchik, who proposed that there are eight basic human emotions. These emotions can be organized on a wheel of opposites and can be characterized as happiness, sadness, fear, anger, anticipation, and surprise. Each marble represents an emotion, and the movie shows how each of those marbles react to the same situation.It has a diverse cast Inside Out is a 2015 computer-animated film that stars a diverse cast of voices. Amy Poehler plays Joy, while Bill Hader voices Fear. Mindy Kaling portrays Disgust. Amy Poehler is an Emmy Award-winning actress. Lewis Black is an American actor who is also an Emmy Award-winner. Mindy Kaling is an Indian American who co-stars in the popular show The Mindy Project.

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Can Inside Out 2 Break Pixar's Cold Streak?

Inside Out 2 will likely break Pixar's losing streak and prove to be popular and meaningful, just like its successful predecessor.
Pixar fans eagerly anticipate the sequel, expecting deeper emotional experiences and a new character, Anxiety, portrayed hilariously.
Director Pete Docter's unique inspiration behind Inside Out led to a well-crafted movie, paving the way for Pixar's successful storytelling.

While there are many memorable and well-crafted Pixar movies, 2015's Inside Out was unique. Now that Inside Out 2 will be released on June 14th, 2024 , fans of the beloved first film are anticipating another compelling, beautifully animated, and moving movie. Inside Out 2 tells the smart story of Riley's (Kaitlyn Diaz) teenage emotions, and considering the box office success of Inside Out , there is reason to believe that the sequel will perform just as well.

While fans rewatch Pixar's animated classics all the time, the last few films by the animated studio didn't do very well at the box office. When Inside Out 2 is released in the summer of 2024, will it make a lot of money in its opening weekend and beyond, proving that Pixar movies can still be hugely successful?

The 7 Saddest Pixar Movies

Pixar has struggled to release a hit movie.

It has been a little while since Pixar released a movie that had a successful run at the box office. According to Variety , when Elemental was released in 2023, it had the most lackluster opening weekend for any Pixar movie . It grossed only $44.5 million worldwide and $29.5 million domestically . In 2022, Lightyear performed poorly at the box office. As Variety reported, it had a $51 million opening North America weekend , which was much less than people expected. Jurassic World Dominion performed better than Lightyear did.

What Pixar Movies Were Released In The 2020s?

Onward (2020)
Soul (2020)
Luca (2021)
Turning Red (2022)
Lightyear (2022)
Elemental (2023)

No Pixar movie released in the 2020s has featured iconic Pixar characters or done very well at the box office. This is partly because Luca , Turning Red , and Soul were released on Disney+ before they were released in theaters for a limited run, according to Entertainment Weekly . For example, Luca , which was released in 2021, only grossed $49,750,471 worldwide , according to Box Office Mojo . It would have been interesting to see how these three films would have fared if they had been given a full theatrical run.

Inside Out Was A Major Success For Pixar When It Came Out

Inside Out not only has hilarious quotes but was a huge box office success for Pixar and the numbers are impressive. According to Box Office Mojo , the film grossed $356,461,711 domestically and $857,611,174 worldwide . As Deadline reported, it had an opening weekend of $90.4 million . No other animated movie made as much money in its opening weekend. While Jurassic World grossed $106.6 million in opening weekend number two, according to Forbes , a lot of people saw Inside Out in the theater.

Inside Out proved that Pixar could release a moving story about emotions and see huge numbers at the box office. It's a great example of a well-crafted movie that was also a huge moneymaker. Inside Out has a lot in common with the instantly loveable 2022 Pixar movie Turning Red which also tells the story of a young girl dealing with intense emotions. It's fair to say that Inside Out informed a lot of Pixar's storytelling moving forward, and it's exciting to imagine what could come next.

In 2016, director Pete Docter was interviewed by NPR and shared the inspiration behind Inside Out . He said:

"The idea kind of started with me just thinking about what would be fun to see in animation, you know - what have I not seen? For some reason, I got thinking about the human body and realizing, well, I've seen, like, traveling through the bloodstream and into the, you know, stomach and things. Well, what if we did this in the mind as opposed to the brain?"

He continued that he wanted to focus on "consciousness and dream production" and have characters who are emotions like Disgust , Fear, Joy, Anxiety, Anger, and Sadness. Docter continued:

"That's exactly what animation does best - strong, opinionated, caricatured personalities. And that just got me excited."

Can Inside Out 2 Break Pixar's Losing Streak?

Since Inside Out was such a box office success when it was released in 2015, it's fair to imagine that the same thing will happen when Inside Out 2 comes out. It seems likely that Inside Out 2 will stop Pixar's losing streak and prove that the animated studio still makes popular and meaningful animated movies about important and relatable subjects. There many confusing parts of Lightyear , which proves that some of Pixar's recent releases fall flat when it comes to plotlines. However, there's no reason not to think that Inside Out 2 will please audiences while also making money.

From the Inside Out 2 trailer, it's clear that the sequel will delve even deeper into Riley's emotional experiences, especially since there is a new emotion, Anxiety, voiced by Maya Hawke . In one hilarious scene, Anxiety says:

"I'm sorry, we wanted to make such a good first impression!"

Pixar fans have been anticipating Inside Out 2 ever since it was first announced because it sounds like the sequel will deliver on the strong storytelling of the first movie. Amy Poehler shared a little bit about the movie at the D23 Expo in 2022. According to People , she said:

"At the very end if the original, Joy has that great moment where she's like, 'Finally, everything the way it's supposed to be.' Then we see that big puberty button, 'Should we press this?' We do press it in the second movie."

Inside Out: What Emotion Does Rileys Dad Feel?

Cast & crew

Inside Out 2

Follow Riley, in her teenage years, encountering new emotions. Follow Riley, in her teenage years, encountering new emotions. Follow Riley, in her teenage years, encountering new emotions.

Kelsey Mann
Dave Holstein
Meg LeFauve
Amy Poehler
Phyllis Smith
Lewis Black

Embarrassment

Riley Andersen
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Trivia The first trailer received 157 million online views within the first 24 hours, more than any other Disney animated film, surpassing Frozen II (2019) , with 116 million views.

Riley Anderson : [from the trailer] I'M THE WORST!

Mom's Anger : Welp, there's a preview of the next ten years.

Connections Featured in AniMat's Crazy Cartoon Cast: The D23 Expo 2022 Special (2022)
When will Inside Out 2 be released? Powered by Alexa
June 14, 2024 (United States)
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Walt Disney Feature Animation - 500 S. Buena Vista Street, Burbank, California, USA (Studio)
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Walt Disney Pictures
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