Inside Out (2015 film)
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Inside Out is a 2015 American 3D computer-animated comedy-drama film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed and written by Pete Docter, the film is set in the mind of a young girl, Riley Anderson (Kaitlyn Dias), where five personified emotions—Joy (Amy Poehler), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), Fear (Bill Hader), and Sadness (Phyllis Smith)—try to lead her through life as she moves with her parents (Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan) to a new city. The film was co-directed and co-written by Ronnie del Carmen and produced by Jonas Rivera, with music composed by Michael Giacchino.
Docter first began developing Inside Out in 2009 after noticing changes in his daughter's personality as she grew older. The film's producers consulted numerous psychologists and researched the mind in preparation for building its story. Initial drafts were unsatisfactory, and the production was revised significantly with the realization that interpersonal relationships guide human emotions.
After premiering at the 68th Cannes Film Festival in May, Inside Out was released on June 19, 2015. It received universal critical acclaim, with many film critics praising its unique concept and poignant subject matter. The film grossed $90.4 million in its first weekend—the best opening for an original title.
Plot
A girl named Riley is born in Minnesota, and within her mind, five manifestations of her emotions—Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger—come to life. The emotions live in Headquarters, Riley's conscious mind, where they influence Riley's actions and memories via a control room. Her new memories are housed in colored orbs, which are sent into storage at the end of every waking period. The most important or "core" memories are housed in a hub in Headquarters and power five "islands" that each reflects a different aspect of Riley's personality. Joy acts as the emotions' leader to keep Riley in a happy state, but she and the others are uncertain of Sadness's purpose.
When Riley is eleven years old, her family relocates to San Francisco after her father gets a new job. Joy becomes concerned when Sadness begins touching happy memories, causing them to become sad, so she tries to keep her isolated. However, on Riley's first day at her new school, Sadness accidentally makes her cry in front of her class, creating a new, sad, core memory. Joy attempts to dispose of the new memory before it reaches the central hub, but she accidentally knocks the other core memories loose in her struggle with Sadness, shutting down the personality islands and making them unstable. Before Joy can put them back, she, Sadness, and the core memories are sucked out of Headquarters through the memory tube leading to the rest of Riley's mind. They end up in the labyrinthine storage area of Riley's long-term memories and set out to return to Headquarters.
Anger, Disgust, and Fear attempt to maintain Riley's emotional state in Joy's absence, but they inadvertently cause her to distance herself from her parents, friends, and hobbies. Consequently, her personality islands crumble and fall one by one into the Memory Dump, an abyss between Headquarters and the rest of Riley's mind where faded memories are disposed and forgotten. Anger decides to insert an idea to run away to Minnesota into the control console, believing they can produce new happy memories there. Meanwhile, Joy and Sadness run into Bing Bong, Riley's childhood imaginary friend who is desperate to reconnect with her. He tells them they can get to Headquarters by riding the Train of Thought. After exploring different areas of Riley's mind, the three eventually catch the train, but it becomes derailed when another personality island falls.
As Riley prepares to board a bus bound for Minnesota, Joy attempts to use a recall tube to return to Headquarters, but the last personality island falls and breaks the tube, sending Joy into the Memory Dump along with Bing Bong when he tries to rescue her. While despairingly looking through old memories, Joy discovers a sad moment in Riley's life that becomes happy when her parents and friends come to comfort her over losing a hockey game. This causes Joy to realize Sadness's true importance: alerting others to when Riley needs help. Joy and Bing Bong then seek out Bing Bong's discarded song-powered wagon to escape, but after several failed attempts, Bing Bong realizes their combined weight is too much, and on a final attempt he jumps out to allow Joy to escape and fades away. Joy then uses various tools from Riley's imagination to propel both herself and Sadness to Headquarters, where they find that Anger's idea has disabled the control console, rendering Riley depressed and apathetic. At Joy's urging, Sadness takes control and successfully removes the idea, reactivating the console and prompting Riley to return home.
As Sadness reinstalls the core memories, Riley arrives home and breaks down in tears, confessing to her parents that she misses her old life. As her parents comfort and reassure her, Joy and Sadness work together to create a new, amalgamated core memory that creates a new personality island. A year later, Riley has adapted to her new home, and her emotions all work together using an expanded control console to help her lead a happy and more emotionally complex life, with more new personality islands produced by new core memories that are combinations of multiple emotions.
