Colegio de San Juan de Letran

Niceforo Vince A. Balbedina III
Midterm Requirement
General Psychology

Movie Reaction Write-up

Disney’s Pixar’s
Inside Out

Born in the 21th century, I was blessed enough to grow up in the luxury that is modern animation in entertainment. I remember the first animated movie I saw was DreamWorks’ Prince of Egypt. From then on, my fascination over animation and cartoons ran like water. I was five years-old when my mother let me watch my first Pixar film which was “Toy Story”. From that moment on, Pixar never failed to fascinate me. Last Wednesday, cinemas nationwide premiered Pixar’s latest work, Inside Out. I already saw the movie trailer before I went to watch the movie itself. The movie teaser was very intriguing. In the 4 minute video, they showcased all of their classic movies and the emotions that they threw towards the audience. After the memory montage, they introduced five characters each symbolizing the five root emotions of man; Joy; shown as a yellow figure that resembles the shape of a star, Sadness; shown as a blue character that resembles the shape of a tear-drop, Anger; the red fellow in the shape of a box, Fear; the purple figure that resembles the shape of a question-mark & Disgust; shown as a green character that resembles the shape of a broccoli. The plot of the story was as simple as it was intricate. It was about the struggle of a young girl, named Riley Andersen, as her emotions meet a dilemma that almost dealt her her biggest disaster. The conflict started when Riley’s Family had to move to San Francisco. Riley, being just the young girl that she was, had to face mountains of adjustment to fit into the new life that she had to live. In her judgment, the big move to San Franco wasn’t so good of an idea. Their new house turned out to be disastrous evidenced by hellish stench given off by a dead rat lying by the wall. When she ran to her bedroom, she saw that it was far smaller than what she had back in Minnesota. To top it all up, their luggage and furniture had some mishap on their way to San Francisco which meant that they’ll be arriving a couple of days later than expected. In Riley’s mind, nothing could be worse than the predicament that she was in. The opening of school gave her hope. The opportunity of having new friends in her new school motivated her to push through her day. Unfortunately, the five characters of her conscious mind met an accident. Sadness touched some of Riley’s “core memories” making them sad forever thus changing Riley’s personality. Here is where the story revolved. In their pursuit of making things better for Riley, things seem to have gotten worse when Joy and Sadness got lost in Riley’s subconscious, leaving Anger, Fear and Disgust in command of the console that controls Riley’s emotions. To cut the long story short, they were able to solve the problem when they realized that the root was when they tried isolating Sadness too much that she suddenly had to have an outburst. After watching the film, I realized what Pixar was trying to teach their young audience. Through their work, they were able to tell me that, contrary to what society has been trying to spoon feed people, there is nothing wrong with being sad. Our lives revolve around a philosophy that we live to find happiness and that we die either happy or not. We work hard every day to earn what gives us happiness forgetting that we can never really know what happiness is if we have never really been in a state of sadness. Day after day, we are showered with advertisements, commercials filled with fake smiles of celebrities that are sadder than we know, telling us how to be happy when the real solution is living inside us, in cages and in shackles. Sadness doesn’t cause wrongness; sadness is the product of wrongness. It is the fruit. We don’t choose to be sad. But, we use sadness in order to achieve real happiness. In the movie, they said that Joy makes sure that Riley is happy, Fear ensures Riley’s safety, Disgust makes sure that their host doesn’t get poisoned and Anger made sure that everything is fair and just. They didn’t know Sadness’s real purpose until the end of the film when sadness took control of the console. Apparently, when Riley gets sad, people around her helps her. Sadness’s purpose was to make sure that when the other emotions fail to keep Riley’s wellbeing, other people will help to keep her spirits. The movie “Inside Out” is not just a film to be enjoyed. It is a film to be understood for it teaches lessons that cannot be taught in classrooms. Pixar has once again, proven itself to be the best companion of anybody of any age in growing up.