Sitting down to watch Inside Out, I did not notice a single person below the age of 18 in the cinema. Animation is no longer reserved for children, and respected as a genre brimming with potential by filmmakers and critics alike. Inside Out reminds us, through a strong script and fluid animation, that adults and children can be emotionally affected in equal parts by animated films.

Inside Out’s easiest route to failure was to focus too heavily on Riley (the main human character), or on the emotions inside her head. The film walks the line with seeming ease, as the macrostory of Riley’s move to San Francisco intrinsically affects the microstory of the emotions inside her head, and vice versa. By potentially overplaying the importance of the emotions and their actions, Riley could have been dumbed down to merely existing as a vessel for emotions, rather than being one with them. This symbiosis between interior and exterior is captured in an entirely original manner, and this is what leads Inside Out to succeed. The writing team behind the film managed to capture the multi-faceted mess that is a person - a collaboration of personality, emotions, abstract thought and other unknowns.

The script is Pixar's best product.

Inside Out is perhaps Pixar’s most mature work in terms of balancing genuine exploration of human emotion, whilst still leaving the audience laughing out loud periodically. Inside Out is not just funny; it is hilarious. The laughs are derived from the infinitely funny number of possibilities when crafting a film inside the mind of a person. It’s a pleasure of a film in retrospect: the more you think about it, the more you are amazed at how many funny moments there were in the surprisingly affecting story.

Michael Giacchino’s score for the film is like good cinematography: supporting and enhancing the story and characters, without being overly ostentatious. It moves with the story and at the climax of the film, gently sweeps over the audience, avoiding melodrama. This climax is an example of Pixar’s writing team’s admirable style, emphasising that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. The coming-of-age story of Riley’s move is simple; the chaos going on inside her head is not, and seems to play over the external story. The subtle and deceptive simplicity of the external story strikes at the prime moment towards the end of the film in an entirely natural way.

Image Credit: Disney; Pixar