Inside Out

Have any of you seend the new Disney Pixar film, "Inside Out"?  I finally did last night.  Several of my adult students have reccommended it to me since it's come up in class that I love animated movies. ;)  I've had it downloaded for a while now, but strangely it's been hard finding time to sit down and watch it!

I really enjoyed it.  For those of you who haven't seen or heard of it, the protagonists are the emotions of an eleven-year-old girl, Riley.  That's right, 90% of the movie takes place inside her brain at "Head-quarters".  Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust take turns pressing buttons on the control panel to keep Riley, safe and happy; but when her parents move from her childhood home in Minnesota to San Francisco, things start to get out of hand.  Joy and Sadness accidentally end up lost in long-term memory and with Head-quarters left in the hands of Anger, Disgust and Fear, you can imagine all the trouble Riley gets into.

It's very cleveryly done and I'd like to watch it again because there are so many witty snippetts that get by you the first time around.  It is an animated movie, but as my adult students who have seen it warned me, it isn't really for young kids--not that it's inappropriate, but the storyline is just too far over their heads. For us adult-folk though, it gives some good food for thought.

It's certainly a film for psychology fans.  The general premis is that our personality is forged from the key moments in our lives (childhood).  These "core memories," as they call them, create connextions to what come to be the pilars of our personality--things like honesty, family, fun, etc. And of course, watching the different emotions react to Riley's life give one pause: how often do we allow Anger or Fear to take the wheel and control our reactions, instead of allowing Joy to show us the positive side of things and see the best in others?

I highly reccommend it.  For those of you who are not fans of animation, put aside your prejudices; it is worth seeing.