As one might imagine, such a change of lifestyle certainly could take a toll on a child trying to cope with the big changes and fitting in. Instead, Reilly is a vehicle for another zany cast whose home is in her head. These are her primary emotions of Joy, Anger, Sadness, Disgust & Fear. Given anthropomorphic form we see this cast in the driving seat of Reilly's attitude and outlook. No different than somehow controlling an avatar in a video game, except that Reilly is real with her own soul and the band of emotions are set apart as the passions within us who have a mind of their own and choose which one of them will override the situation as Reilly's primary emotional response.
Basically, there's a bunch of people in Reilly head who embody the different passions - the chief lead at this age being the ever optimistic Joy who's been running the show and attempting to keep Sadness far and away in the background so that Reilly has a perpetually happy life. But Sadness as we know can't be repressed forever, and eventually things go out of control and an inner breakdown occurs in Reilly as Joy and Sadness are both lost deep within Reilly's mind leaving only Anger, Disgust and Fear in the driver's seat to cope until Joy and Sadness return. This brings Reilly to a rebellious phase of her life in her social activities as well as creating a rift between her and her parents.
Having watched this film with a friend, he'd turned to me and mentioned that 'Inside Out' is perhaps a movie better appreciated by adults rather than children.
I happen to fully agree with that sentiment!
This does not mean that kids cannot enjoy the movie which is filled with plenty of great characters and visual gags. But Inside Out also works on a higher level. Indeed there are jokes that will run deeper for those of us who've already been through the phases of growing up. Especially clever is how things are laid out within Reilly's mind which is showcased as an industrial categorized library of processes and emotions that are both carefully and haphazardly databased and catalogued and laid out in visual representations that are easily and amusingly digestible which offers the opportunity to play these up for laughs.
But undoubtedly, Pixar's writers and concept artists have been studying psychology and human emotions and experiences and the work put into Inside Out definitely shows. It is a film far smarter than it had any business being and absolutely everybody will get something out of it.
As someone who has personally been feeling down lately, Inside Out even had me elevated and thinking about my own inner turmoil. This is an outstanding film that can be extraordinarily touching especially when it plays with little trivial moments. It is not the grand adventure of a 'Finding Nemo', instead it takes our small personal conflicts and grandiosely makes them larger than life!
This will rank up there with Pixar's finest if not the best. But it is definitely their most imaginative, interesting and cleverest film! This I can guarantee!
