DIRECTOR Pete Docter’s choice of theme for “Inside Out” sets out to explain the inner workings of a child’s brain.
In the first few years of life, behaviour is observable, but assessing the legacy of how it interacts with emotional and physical senses and memory needs assumptions about territory that adults have long forgotten.
In her high chair, spoon-fed Riley rejected broccoli. That’s a response from green-haired Disgust. Parental manipulation brings yellow-haired Joy to restore order. Skinny multi-toned Fear and plump blue-haired Sadness express their views. And Anger in red overalls has fun being, just, angry.
As the child grows older and better able to communicate its feelings, adults may more successfully enquire into observed behaviour but much of it remains secret in the child.
In its last third, Docter’s film jumps the tracks, an appropriate metaphor taking Riley, just into double-digit age, on a wild train ride after losing control of her five emotional controllers.
As Riley grows older, the film’s treatment becomes increasingly focussed on middle-American values. It ignores growing in a working-class environment. The story perforce stops studying early childhood issues as Riley approaches the threshold marked puberty. The closing credits remind us that the five emotions continue to influence not only adults but also our pets.
The principal question that “Inside Out” poses is, how will Pixar’s skilful attempt to visually animate a topic that’s innately not visible resonate with the age cohort with which its plot and events deal? Forgive me, please, for being unable to offer a credible answer.
At Capitol 6, Dendy, Palace Electric and Hoyts
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