The summer blockbuster season is upon us and with no surprise, Pixar held nothing back in their latest film, Inside Out. After scoring a 98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and causing my friend, Aaron, to literally go out and buy a movie poster directly after seeing the movie, I figured it was time I saw what all the hype was about. I am never too eager to throw $10 towards a few hours of screen time but Pixar has proven to me that sometimes it is worth it. After years of churning out cinematic masterpieces such as Toy Story and The Incredibles, they have attained a reputation of being the best at what they do. I went into Inside Out with unrealistically high expectations and amazingly, Pixar still went above and beyond.
To put it simply, Inside Out is about feelings. The film uses appealing cartoons and a world of imagination to tackle the difficult job of explaining why we feel the way that we do at all times. Inside of Riley, the protagonist's, mind live five common emotions that all humans can express and relate to. Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust are all portrayed by colorful and charismatic beings that run and control Riley’s brain. They are in charge of her decision-making, storing memories, and even her dreams. Each personality trait works together throughout the film to make sure Riley lives the best life that she possibly can; nevertheless, problems manage to arise.
After Riley moves from Minnesota to San Francisco, things start to get a little bumpy in her life. It is the job of the five feelings to make this transition as smooth as possible, but life events like this are not always stress-free and it shows as Riley’s feelings struggle to sort it all out. As Joy and the others desperately try to make Riley happy, they neglect that happiness may not always be the immediate answer and things start to fall apart as sadness slowly turns into depression. Malfunctions occur in the feeling’s headquarters and the feelings lose all control of Riley’s emotions. This catastrophe leads to a bewildering journey through parts unknown in the inner sanctums of Riley’s unstable mind.
The conflict and resolve in the film are entertaining as can always be promised by Pixar, but there really is a message that can be taken from Inside Out about mental health and how it affects us. Although science has proven that our brains are not actually run by tiny little sentient beings inside of our head, these animations are a testament to the fragility of the human brain. When a team of nearly incompetent fairy like creatures are in control of the stability of an entire personality something is bound to go wrong. The worst part is that in the event that they do mess up, they are also the ones who have to fix the problem, which becomes nearly impossible in the film. With mental health awareness on the rise in the US, this film could help some to understand the severity of a mental illness.
In Riley’s case she falls into a severe depression that causes her to pack her bags and run away from home, from her family. Some may say depression is not a real problem and people should simply cheer up, but Riley clearly cannot do that after her inner emotions fail to communicate properly with her. Joy, the character for happiness, literally becomes trapped in a pit inside of Riley’s mind and Riley cannot be happy until Joy finds her way out. Depression works in a similar way in that people become trapped in their own sadness and leave no room for joy and happiness. As someone who never quite understood depression as an actual “disease,” Inside Out hit the nail on the head and cleared a few things up. Sometimes your emotions take over and as hard as you try, there is a switch in your brain that cannot be flipped to change things back to the way they were.
Riley never really returns to normal after her life spirals downward. She recovers and finds a way to live happily, but it is not the same way that she was living before she became depressed. The feelings insider her head have to start over and create new memories for Riley to be happy about. It is amazing that one event can create such an impact on a person, and although this is just a cartoon movie, I now see situations like Riley’s in my own life and all around me. Our emotions are fragile, and at the same time easily taken for granted. If there is one lesson to take away from Inside Out, it is to treat your relationships more carefully than anything else, because you never know what kind of upheaval the five feelings inside might be dealing with.
