Pixar as a studio has always produced great films - but their best have always presented a unique skew on things we take for granted.

How can toys be alive? What do bugs do that’s so great? You’re old - you can’t be an adventurer! No way a robot can feel. The worst thing in a kitchen? A RAT!

With their latest release, Inside Out, the animation studio once again gives importance to something we take terribly for granted - our emotions, and how they define our actions, and ultimately who we are. The result? An all-time classic, and their best film in years.

Set mostly within the confines of the head of an 11-year-old girl named Riley, Inside Out is the story of our emotions, personified by Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Disgust (Mindy Kahling) and Anger (Lewis Black). These emotions have worked as a group to guide Riley through her life, but after her parents decide to move from Minnesota to San Francisco, things start to go terribly wrong for Riley - not just because the move is tough for her and her family (it sounds like her Dad’s working for a startup gone wrong, from what little we hear), but because she’s growing up - and when you grow up, as we all know - or learn - your emotions go haywire.

In this instance, the emotions go haywire when the prior balance in Riley’s head - Joy running the show, is thrown into chaos. Sadness decides to become more of a part of the picture. The dysfunctional work relationship between Joy and Sadness breaks bad, and in an incident involving the transportation of memory orbs from “Headquarters" (where the emotions work), to Long Term Memory (where memories are stored), Joy and Sadness are removed from Headquarters and are left on a journey to return some control back to Riley.

On paper, it’s your standard road trip sort of film - an unlikely duo trying to get from Point A to Point B, and learning to work together along the way. But in that trademark Pixar way, Inside Out subverts these expectations as a canvas to discuss something greater, to discuss how emotions drive us.

There are incredible set pieces, including a brilliant sequence through abstract thought, hilarious gags about how jingles get stuck in your head, the confusion of facts and opinions, and even why some memories persist and others fade away. But the most incredible part is how it speaks to a universal truth in humans. We all have Joy, Fear, Disgust, Anger and Sadness. And every moment of Joy is tinged by Sadness. It’s what makes us, well, us. And it’s an incredibly freeing moment to realize that everyone you know is in the same boat.

One of the coolest moments of the movie is actually just as the credits roll - we see the teams of emotions running all sorts of characters lives. You see that beneath it all we’re the same. We struggle, we work hard, and within each of us, there really is an adventure that we’re trying to conquer. It just so happens that Inside Out shows it to us through the lens of an 11-year-old girl.

In recent years, Pixar films haven’t had the same flare they did in the past. While I enjoyed both Brave and Monsters University, you cannot deny that they were slighter entries in the Pixar filmography. With Inside Out, director Pete Docter, who brought us Monsters Inc. and Up previously, gives us possibly the best film that Pixar has yet released. A remarkable moment in animation, viewers young and old will relate to the internalized struggles turned dramatic here - and as all great films wish us to do, we’ll find a universal truth inside us all.

Inside Out is an incredible achievement, a remarkable film, and one I’ll be thinking about for years to come. At the very least, I know that I’ll be wondering which of my emotions is in control.

Additional Notes

  • I actually saw Inside Out in 3D! Like most computer animated films, the 3D was stronger than your normal live action experience, and especially effective during the abstract thought sequence. While by no means essential to the film, 3D was certainly a nice bonus here.
  • The film is proceeded by Lava, the latest short from Pixar. Yet again, I found myself caring for an inanimate object. Also, if the water tech shown here is any indication, Finding Dory is going to be a beautiful film.

Inside Out is in theaters now, and is available for pre-order on Amazon and iTunes.