There is one
territory that humans are only at the brink of uncovering: our brain. The
fascinating to the point of magical world of the brain and mental health is yet
to be well understood and our studies are really in their infancy. But we have
made progress, definitively moving away from the psychoanalytic couch into a sphere
where we’ll be using the tools of genomics, neuroscience, and exposomics to
forge ahead in our knowledge; and it seems we’re letting the kids (and their parents
too) in on some of the its neat workings in this wild ride of a movie, Inside Out, that is Disney Pixar’s digitally
animated incursion into Riley’s brain!
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| Amy Poehler as Joy |
Not only does Inside Out present children with a
fascinating view of some of the mechanisms and complexities of our brains (yes,
a movie that actually gets kids to think about something), but it does so in
such a dynamic and creative way, and with such rounded out and developed
characters, that it completely engages the viewer emotionally. That’s a lot to
say, especially when the characters are supposedly one-dimensional emotions:
joy, sadness, disgust, fear and anger. The movie is a feat of writing,
animation and also voice acting. I have to stop here and give a loud cheer for
the amazing Amy Poehler and how incredible she is as the voice of Joy! Truly,
what a joy she is! What a way to give life to an animated character! All the
voice casting is wonderful in this film, to tell the truth, which just makes
Amy’s art all the more impressive. Richard Kind is tearfully great as Bing
Bong, Riley’s imaginary friend, Phyllis Smith plays sadness, Bill Hader is
fear, Lewis Black anger and Mindy Kailing disgust. Perfect casting!
Minnesota born Director
Peter Docter, of Up and Monster’s
Inc. stature, in collaboration with Philippine art director Ronaldo Del Carmen,
have made a movie that lifts us out of the theatre and takes us on an emotional
roller coaster ride into the brain and emotions of its main protagonist, eleven
year old Riley who has been uprooted from her life in Minnesota and taken to
San Francisco, where her dad has moved to pursue his career. Simple enough, except for the changes that
this event and her growing up mean to her brain.
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| Richard Kind as Bing Bong |
With this movie
Pixar is also taking another step in the right direction of breaking away from
the little “boxes” society likes to create around situations and people. It
does so by choosing the interesting story line, as we’ve mentioned, but also by finally
casting another female lead. Of the fifteen feature films Pixar has released,
this is only the second that has a female lead. The other one was Brave. The difference with Brave, however, is that that movie
seemed to be set on making a statement about having a female lead, a “hey,
Pixar is finally casting a female lead and she’s strong and brave, even though
she’s a girl!”. Where as in Inside Out
there’s no need for the statement. It’s more natural. The person in whose brain
we’re inside just happens to be a girl, a hockey playing, smart and great girl.
So in our still quite sexist society, boys / men can feel just at home with the
movie as girls have always had to feel with all other Pixar films. Brave, however, still holds the honor of
having the only female director a Pixar film has ever had, albeit a
co-director. Brenda Chapman, who co-directed Brave, went on to become the first
woman to win and Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Inside Out, while not directed by a woman, does have Meg LeFauve as
one of the screenplay writers.
So this movie
does it right and gets rewarded in the process. Inside Out made over $90 million dollars on its opening weekend, which
means, in terms of all 15 of Pixar’s films, that it has only been topped by Toy
Story 3. It would not come as a surprise if Amy Poehler received a –well
deserved- Academy Award nomination for her voice acting.
What should be
most rewarding to the makers of Inside
Out, however, is that it is providing a thought provoking, emotionally
charged, creative, quality film for children. And this is good. This is,
hopefully, a drop in the bucket of helping them be just that much better than
their parents. And that's the best thing film can do, teach them well.
