Inside Out. Rated PG (mild themes). 102 minutes. Directed by Pete Docter and Ronaldo Del Carmen. Screenplay by Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley and Pete Docter.
It is impossible to imagine how much poorer our lives would be without the films (A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, to name just a few) from Pixar Animation Studios. Ever since their game-changing debut with Toy Story (1995), Pixar have been at the forefront of animated storytelling, and imaginations around the world have been inspired by their marvellously inventive creations.
It might also be just as impossible to imagine how Pixar could raise the bar yet again, particularly within an industry that is obsessed with producing a seemingly endless number of sequels. And while Pixar is no stranger to the perils of sequelitis, Inside Out represents a bold, original and radical departure from all that has gone before.
Set mostly inside the mind of a girl named Riley, Inside Out is about how her emotions – Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger – create, harvest and store our young heroine’s memories and life experiences. The creative team’s skill and unwavering commitment to what can only be described as a challenging and mind-altering premise, results in some extraordinary sequences and some incredibly special ones, such as those featuring the gorgeous creation that is Riley’s imaginary friend Bing Bong.
Where Inside Out succeeds without peer, is in the magical way in which an abstract Universe of emotion, thought, memory and action has been imagined and then flawlessly realised. Not only is Inside Out one of the most original films in recent memory, it is also a film that has the power to change not only the way you think, imagine and recall, but also what you think about. And these days, that is nothing less than an astonishing achievement, and one that will leave you utterly enthralled.
This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.
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