It’s been a whole week since I saw Pixar’s latest offering, Inside Out, and I’m still on a high from what was one of the best cinema experiences I’ve had in recent times.
Pixar has
always been the Studio that thrives off imagination and with each film, the
concept always stems from a ‘what if scenario.’ What if toys could come to life?
What if the monsters behind the cupboard are actually running a business? Or
what if an elderly man uses balloons to fly his house across the world in order to fulfill his
dreams.
In the last
five years, the Pixar output has been frankly poor; Toy Story 3 was the last
decent classic I can remember with its successors failing to achieve the
quality of the previous decade and half’s offerings. Thankfully, Inside Out
brings Pixar’s high quality back to centre stage with a scenario looking at what
really goes on inside a person’s mind.
With an
intriguing premise, a brilliant cast of voices and a mass of critical acclaim,
I went into this film with high expectations that were not only met, but
exceeded. The film has been praised by psychiatrists for its accurate depiction
of a person’s mind and in typical Pixar fashion goes full force with its
imaginative ideas. With this, it also adheres to the elements of a
script; three act structure, relatable characters and clever developments.
What did the
film do for me as a screenwriter? It made me realise that I have a long, long
way to go. One of my dreams is to write a Pixar film, and every writer always
has a collection of films that inspires them and they wish they had
written themselves, Inside Out is the latest in that canon.
Hopefully
Inside Out will kick start a Pixar renaissance and bring back the importance of
story and character that has been missing in recent years. The movie will
inevitably win Best Animated Film at all the movie award ceremonies, but I feel it should at least be considered for a Best Picture nomination. It’s heads and tails above
many live action movies and certainly a hundred times better than the diabolically
overrated Frozen. Granted, I’m not
exactly the target audience for that movie, but compared to classic animated films and Inside Out, it’s average at best and with a very weak
script.
