Review of Inside Out

We went to see Inside-Out, the new Pixar movie recently. What a lot of thought went into this animated feature. It opens up a portal into our own psyche in clever ways. Most of us have a hard time seeing into the inner world of others, and most of us have a difficult time peering into our own inner workings, so the movie offers  a view into the recesses of the self.

It takes a voyage into the mind of an 11 year old girl. As she grows and develops, her brain is pictured as as console area populated by five emotions:  joy, disgust, sadness, anger, and fear. Memory is featured as a vast dump where most things are forgotten, but some are stored, to be forgotten as time goes on. Some critical memories go into a long-term area and those coalesce into the personality traits and features important at the time. It gives short shrift to cognition, other than a literal train of thought, but the struggle to manage all the emotions looks a lot like Freud’s notion of the ego, the Greek word for the self, the  I. My guess would be that much of it went over the head of a young audience, but it surely gave the adults there something to work with.

It has some thought provoking ideas. What is the source of our impetuous decisions? Where does perseverance draw its strength? Where does empathy and compassion emerge? What happens if our feelings shut down?

Most notably it takes direct aim at the cult of cheerfulness and positive thinking. The other emotions try to keep sadness tightly confined. After all, her sadness does spread into memories.They treat her as someone to be segregated. Prof. Keltner, an advisor to the film has shown that emotional range is a vital learning in childhood. Further, research has indicated that pressuring someone toward happiness above all, or alone, is counter-productive. Childhood emotional intelligence goes into the recognition and balancing of different emotional states. they help us to handle, avoid, or interpret  different situations as they arise.

I was asked by someone who apparently wants art to present a didactic Christian viewpoint if the movie was properly Christian, whatever that means. Upon reflection, I should respond that the church takes us as we are, and if psychology and art help us to understand the inner workings of the self, all to the good. On the other hand, it could serve as a good template to talk about virtues and vices in a different, even compelling way. It could even serve as a way to discuss Paul’s treatment of the self in Romans 7. What would be the five important virtues at different times in life, or are they always the most important. How would you picture  critical vices at different stages in life? When she makes an impetuous decision, notice how both different emotions and a blindness to consequence reflect a full er view of sin in the tradition, not our easy acceptance fo sin as educators term it, merely bad choices. In other words, the movie could be an outright gift to christian education and youth programs with the patience to work through it with some care.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking character is the long forgotten imaginary friend. voiced by Richard Kind, It bears resemblance ot the forgotten toys of Toy Story 2, and the song by Sarah McGlaughlin. The imaginary friend is a composite of some of the early features of her life and leads her imagination to explore her hopes and aspirations as she is growing up. In Christian terms, the character propels her growth by an act of self-sacrifice.