Selecting a single film to stand out as the top of the decade is a pretty tricky choice. Of course, several films could vie for the top spot, but they had to settle for 2nd - 9th. So what is it about Inside Out, the one perfect film Pixar put out this decade, that made it stand head and shoulders above the rest?
With rewatch upon rewatch, my love for this film grew. It's the rare family film that is so emotionally intelligent that it can teach grown-ups as well as children. The film personifies five emotions inside a young girl's head: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear. While there are of course a myriad more emotions we feel, these are a solid five representations, and as conveyed by Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling, and Bill Hader, they are given life and distinction from each other.
The film has no bad guys (if anything the protagonist, Joy, is the villain), but instead draws drama from something as simple yet as devastating as a cross country move for a 12-year-old girl. The film's climax is a bold, stunning sequence that teaches us the power of sadness, that it's ok to feel sad sometimes, for it is in sadness that those that care most will reach out to us and offer us comfort.
This is an obvious enough message, but it is so rare to see something so simple yet so powerful conveyed in our pop culture. Pixar was not the hitmaker this decade that they were in the 2000s, where their output included the likes of Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Wall-E, and Up. Besides this film and Coco, I wouldn't consider their output this decade to come even close to matching the outstanding quality they released ten years before.
Still, we got this film, directed by Pete Doctor, and I am eternally grateful for it. The best cinematic experiences are ones that move us profoundly, that emotionally grab us and take us on incredible, fantastical journeys that we never thought possible. I adore this film, and it stands head and shoulders above the rest as my single favorite film from the decade spanning 2010-2019.
No comments:
Post a Comment