New movie review: Inside Out

Joy takes the wheel in Inside Out, the new film from Pixar Animation Studios.

Pixar Animation Studios has been around for 20 years and 15 films now. A new Pixar movie is reason enough to be excited as a few of the studio’s films belong in the conversation for the best of the last two decades – Wall-E, Up, and Toy Story 3 are firmly on this level. Even still, the description of Inside Out, which opened in theaters this week, had me practically vibrating with anticipation. Up helmer Pete Docter is back in the director’s chair for a look at life from inside the mind of a young girl.

This movie has been on my radar for years, and there are certain problems that come up when expectations run so high for so long, not the least of which is a genuinely great film falling short of those absurdly high expectations. For me, that is the case with Inside Out. I cannot look at it objectively. My mind has built up for years everything this movie could be, everything I wanted it to be, and though it is not those things, it is my fault, not the creators’.

Told from the point of view of a little girl’s emotions – Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear – Inside Out is about the pain and poignancy of growing up and how embracing life means appreciating the highs and the lows. The film is bold, visionary, and on point. It will play like gangbusters to its target audience – which is children, by the way, regardless of the rapturous praise bestowed on the film by adult critics – and it communicates an essential life lesson creatively and simply.

The girl is Riley, whose family moves from rural Minnesota to San Francisco as her father tries to start a new company, presumably in the tech industry. She has to start a new school, a situation in which Fear (voiced by Bill Hader) is working overtime. She adjusts to a new house, which Disgust (Mindy Kaling) is all over. She resents being brought halfway across the country away from everything she has ever known, which is when Anger (Lewis Black) takes over. Through it all, Sadness (Phyllis Smith) touches everything it sees. Yet, the overriding emotion is Joy (Amy Poehler).

Inside Out is an ode to the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed optimism of youth and a plea to children everywhere to hold on to that outlook as long as they can. However, this is a knowing film, and the screenplay by Docter, Josh Cooley, and Meg LeFauve recognizes that growing up and getting just a little jaded is inevitable. Sadness is real, as are fear, anger, and disgust, and there is nothing wrong with feeling any of them. Each combines to make Riley who she is and to make us who we are.

The message is elegant, important, and not too far removed from similar themes in Up or Toy Story 3. Where the problem comes – and none of what I am about to say should distract from the fact that I think this is absolutely a must-see film – is in its plot, which revolves around Joy and Sadness trying to find their way back to the headquarters of Riley’s mind with the rest of the emotions.

As it progresses, the plot seems to exist less to develop the themes of the movie than to keep viewers’ attention while the themes develop around it. Joy and Sadness travel through Riley’s memories, imagination, and subconscious as Joy leads the way with an unending supply of hopefulness. In their journey, they meet Bing Bong (a sensational Richard Kind), Riley’s imaginary friend from childhood whom she no longer remembers, though he remembers her.

It is all great fun, there are a number of wonderful gags, and Bing Bong’s arc is deeply felt and emotionally satisfying. Yet, at its core, Inside Out just seems a little safe. The life of the mind is a massive amusement park with endless possibilities, particularly in animation, but Docter and company seem hesitant to go on the scariest rides.

There is an alternately delightful and suspenseful sequence in which our heroes travel through the Hall of Abstract Thought and begin taking on abstract shapes and dimensions themselves. Gorgeously rendered and brilliantly conceived, it is the kind of sequence the film could use more of, but I feel I am in the minority here and can understand why.

An existential journey through the labyrinth of the mind would be an impressive and daring feat of children’s filmmaking, but I cannot be sure many people would want to see it. Inside Out, as it is, is magnificently resonant and endlessly relatable. It argues that youth is a glorious time of innocence that is over far too soon. We watch as Riley’s memories literally fade away off the screen, and we are sad for her because we know what she is losing, but we are also sad for ourselves and the things we have lost and cannot recall.

The credits end with a simple, if impossible, plea from the filmmakers: “Dedicated to our children. Don’t grow up. Ever.” Of course, we all must grow up and grow old, but the spirit of the message is pure. If youth is joy, then it cannot hurt to keep joy at the wheel as long as we can. Because if we do, then no matter the destination, we are in for one amazing ride.

See it? Yes.

New movie review: The Skeleton Twins

Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader play siblings in the new comedy-drama The Skeleton Twins.

There are bonds that can never be broken, and there are bonds that must be broken. As The Skeleton Twins progresses, it becomes clear which are which. It is undeniable that twins Maggie and Milo share the former, but as the movie begins, they have not spoken in 10 years. The intrigue comes less from the dawning realization of what drove this wedge between them and more from the careful mending of the wounds it left.

When we meet Milo, he is living in a cluttered apartment in Los Angeles and seems to be reeling from a breakup with his most recent boyfriend. He blasts his stereo, hops in the bathtub, and slashes his wrists. Across the country in upstate New York, Maggie stares at herself in the mirror, then looks down at a handful of pills. She, too, is going to end it, but moments before she does, she gets a call that her brother is in the hospital. She picks him up and invites him to stay with her and her new husband. He accepts the invitation, and everything else flows from there.

Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader play the titular siblings. Every scene between the two resonates with depth, warmth, and humor, and despite the movie’s dark tone, the pairing of Wiig and Hader cannot help but bring light to the proceedings. Though not portraying solely dramatic or tragic characters, the actors are afforded the opportunity to show new sides to their well-known comic personae.

In particular, Hader infuses Milo with the energy and wit so often indicative of the characters he plays in his films or on Saturday Night Live, but The Skeleton Twins allows him to show what happens to the smartass when the door closes and there is no else left in the room. His go-to tactic of making jokes even in the darkest times reveals a person who wants to make others happy despite his own happiness remaining elusive.

As Milo is released from the hospital, he is reading “Marley and Me.” Maggie arrives and accidentally spoils the ending. He plays the victim, and she feels bad, before he reveals that he already knew how it ends, that everyone knows how it ends. She says, “I see you’ve still got your sense of humor.” He responds, “They can’t take that away from me.” This is another joke, but it also is a moment of raw vulnerability. He is a struggling actor who waits tables and keeps only the company of his fish. All he may have left are his wisecracks.

Maggie is so mired in her rut that even her humor escapes her. Her job is uninspiring, and though her marriage to Lance (Luke Wilson) tethers her to reality, it also causes her no end of guilt. We never see what her days were like before Milo showed up, but Wiig’s performance makes it clear Maggie checked out of her life a long time ago.

The ways she tries to shake herself out of her depression are observational of the limited options she sees for herself and the passive role she plays in her day-to-day interactions. But the more she lies to herself, the deeper into the muck she sinks. Milo comes back into her life at her lowest moment, but it is just the nadir of a low ebb that has gone on since before we can know. She did not get here overnight. She got here over years.

Wilson’s scene-stealing turn as the husband who may be the nicest guy in the world is both hilarious and sad. A genuinely good, generally happy person who plays fantasy football and enjoys The Deadliest Catch, Lance does not belong among these people. His light-hearted optimism is the antithesis of what Milo and Maggie experience, and his persistent upbeat attitude has the effect of rubbing the siblings’ noses in a state of being they could never enjoy.

Though there is some family backstory, including a father who battled depression and lost, the script relies too much on “The Big Event” in their lives that brought Milo and Maggie to this point. Writer-director Craig Johnson and co-writer Mark Heyman seem to understand what it is like to suffer from depression and the difficult process of recovery, but they seem at a loss to explain its origins.

Depression is an impossibly multifaceted disease caused by myriad genetic and environmental factors, and it would be a lot to ask for a movie to explain. But by pinning so much of the siblings’ current state to one major event from their teenage years, the movie undermines its potential for exploration and growth, instead settling for deep characters defined by shallow circumstance.

That Hader and Wiig are great in these roles in undeniable, but one gets the feeling that given more incisive material, their performances could have been transcendent. At the same time, the filmmakers clearly set out to make an affecting comedy split evenly between pathos and humor. At that, they have succeeded, and no one can take that away from them.

See it? Yes.