Inside Out ★★★★☆

I am not sure why this cartoon is called Inside Out, and I didn't know about the animated movie until my colleague told me about it a few weeks ago, and even then I kept forgetting about it. I finally watched it today.

I just found out that it won many awards including the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award, Critics' Choice Award, Annie Award, and Satellite Award for Best Animated Feature, and I haven't heard of it? 

But I loved it, and by the end of the movie, I was bawling. It surely got emotional watching a movie about personified emotions. 

It's about a girl, Riley Andersen, who had to manage life changes when she moved from Minnessota to San Francisco. The five base emotions in charge in her brain were Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger. 

It was fun watching these emotions working together. They are not inherently bad, they are pure emotions. Sadness is sad and Anger is angry. Fear is fearful and useful to help avert accidents and Disgust is disgusted. Joy is the de-facto leader in charge of making Riley's life happy. She puts herself to work full time to ensure all is good. 

But what is important for them to realize is that no one emotion governs the others. They are all important for a complete life. For Riley to have a happy life, all five emotions need to work together. 

It is a good story but the one observation I have is that values are missing, but of course for a cartoon, that may be complicating it all, though it would have been a richer story if a value center were included, don't you think?

pearlie