Inside Out: A 'truly powerful' look into the mind of an 11-year-old girl
Pixar's new family-friendly feature is 'exquisite,' says CBC's film critic Eli Glasner
Inside Out opens in theatres this weekend, delving to emotional depths not typically travelled by most family-friendly comedies.
The latest offering from animation powerhouse Disney/Pixar, directed by Up's Pete Docter, takes audiences inside the mind of Riley, an 11-year-old girl uprooted by her father's new job in San Francisco.
But the film takes a daring twist in the way it depicts Riley's mental transformation, using colourful personifications of her five main emotions:
- Joy, voiced by comedian Amy Poehler
- Fear, portrayed by Saturday Night Live's Bill Hader
- Anger, as personified by the funnyman Lewis Black
- Disgust, played by The Mindy Project's Mindy Kaling
- Sadness, as voiced by The Office's Phyllis Smith
As always, Pixar's animation is "exquisite," says CBC's film critic Eli Glasner, which is complimented by "the perfect voice casting" of the film's adorable Muppet-like characters.
"But what's truly powerful about this film," Glasner says, "is how it has the courage to go, literately and figuratively, into a dark place to tell a story about truly embracing one's emotions."
Inside Out goes into wide release on Friday.
Watch Eli's full review in the video above.