Inside Out: A Game-Changer

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.