Riley is a normal, happy 11 year old girl who enjoys goofing around with her family, playing ice hockey and spending time with friends.
Her happiness is overseen by five emotions who help to guide her memories and actions: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust from a control room inside her brain. Here memories are made and sorted into core memories, long term memories and those that are discarded to make room for more.
When Riley’s parents decide to move to San Francisco for work she finds her world is turned upside down and it becomes hard to stay positive. To make things worse, Joy and Sadness get locked out of the control centre and stranded in a different part of Riley’s brain leaving only Fear, Anger and Disgust at the helm.
Riley has to navigate the difficult challenges of starting at a new school, trying out for a new hockey team, making new friends and settling into a new home while only being able to access these negative emotions. Meanwhile Joy and Sadness struggle to make their way back to the control room with the help of Bing Bong, Riley’s almost forgotten and completely goofy imaginary friend.
Inside Out is a great vehicle for opening discussion with children about feelings and emotions and demonstrates the importance of negative emotions as well as the positive ones. It does however have some difficult concepts for young children to grasp, not that this really matters as there is enough humour to keep them giggling and engaged right to the end.
Inside Out is voiced by a talented cast: Amy Poehler as Joy, Bill Hader as Fear , Lewis Black as Anger and Richard King as Bing Bong who help to keep the laughs coming, while Kyle MacLachlan and Diane Lang provide the sensible voices of dad and mom.
This is a very clever and highly original concept and the 3D presentation works beautifully to enhance the colourful fantasy feel. Inside Out is another wonderful family movie from Pixar and Disney for the enjoyment of children and parents alike.
Reviewed by Ceri Horner
Twitter: @CeriHorner
Rating out of 10: 9
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