Score: 4/5
“Inside Out” tells the previously untold story of all of the emotions in your head. According to Pixar, they have a control center surrounded by memory banks, long term memory, and islands that make up your personality.
The movie focuses on one 11-year-old girl named Riley (Kaitlyn Dias). Up until the time she turned 11 all of her memories were happy. Joy (Amy Poehler) was in charge of keeping Riley happy since birth, and she took great pride in her job.
One day, seemingly out of nowhere, the family packs up their things and moves from Minnesota to San Francisco. Joy starts to lose control of Riley’s happy spirit as Sadness (Phyllis Smith) starts to touch Riley’s core memory spheres and add sadness to the events. Joy believes that now is especially the time to make sure Riley stays happy after leaving her friends and childhood home behind.
When all of the core memories get knocked out of the core memory bank, Sadness and Joy get sucked out of headquarters and out into the rest of Riley’s brain, leaving Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and Fear (Bill Hader) in charge of Riley. Things start going south quickly as Riley cannot function without Joy or Sadness in control.
Then Sadness and Joy have to race against the clock to get back to headquarters before Riley has a mental breakdown, leaving her personality lost forever. Without the core memories, everything that makes Riley unique will be lost forever.
“Inside Out” is a great blend of humor and serious tones. The movie does a great job in teaching kids that sometimes being sad is the only way to be happy again. It also teaches them to never let anger, fear, and disgust run your emotions. The moral, mixed with the witty humor and brain puns, i.e. the train of thought being a train that delivers random messages, are going to make “Inside Out” yet another classic Pixar film.