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| INSIDE OUT: A coming-of-age story set within the mind of an 11-year-old girl, Riley |
INSIDE OUT is a head trip. Literally. The brains at Pixar have come up with their most audacious and unconventional tale yet, a coming-of-age story set predominantly within the mind of an 11-year-old girl, Riley.
Inside Out (U, 102mins)
Directors: Pete Docter, Ronaldo Del Carmen
Voices: Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Kyle MacLachlan, Bill Hader, Mindy Kaling
The principal characters are her emotions: ebullient, yellow-hued Joy (Amy Poehler), fiery red Anger, bespectacled blue blob Sadness, disdainful green Disgust and purplish bag-of-nerves Fear.
Together they occupy a control room with a viewing panel to the outside world, like a space ship in the brain, squabbling over who takes command. “Islands of personality” - representing friendship, honesty, family etc - float off in the distance, ready to crumble as Riley’s life takes a turn for the worse.
Co-writer and director Pete Docter is the man behind Monster’s Inc and Up and like the latter classic, with it’s tear-inducing prologue charting a couple’s life journey together, Inside Out is a model of economic and moving storytelling.
The opening scenes skilfully introduce the concept and characters while generating a sense of joy at the wonders of parenthood as Riley enters the world and starts to grow.
She’s a happy bunny, producing an abundance of pleasing “core memories” which manifest themselves as shiny spheres - like a ball pit of “Kodak moments” - managed in the basement of Riley’s brain by a team of “mind workers”.
The inevitable question, which the film doesn’t really answer, is: “is Riley in control of her Emotions or are the Emotions in control of Riley?”.
It’s a bit of a chicken and egg scenario that is probably best not to think about too much. External events influence her Emotions and the Emotions influence external events.
The real battle is - which Emotions dominate? The protagonist is the effervescent Joy whose purpose in life is for Riley’s head to hit the pillow each night after “another perfect day.”
Her control begins to slip, however, when without warning Riley’s parents (Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan) relocate from Minnesota to San Francisco, uprooting Riley from her comfortable home, close friends and ice hockey team.
“There’s no reason for Riley to be happy now,” says Sadness sadly; rather than being malicious and therefore unlikeable she rather sweetly wants the best for Riley. Unsure of her role in life, she mopes about morosely, trying not to mess things up - increasingly unsuccessfully.
Like many of Pixar’s best movies - Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Up - the picture is essentially a buddy comedy as Joy and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) go on a road trip through the perilous terrain of Riley’s head after inadvertently being swept away into the far reaches of her psyche.
Can they make it back to HQ before a dejected Riley runs away from home? To do so they must traverse many inventively conceived worlds including Long Term Memory, Imagination Land and Dream Productions (a kind of movie studio of the mind) while avoiding the grim Subconscious.
To speed up their progress they can catch the Train of Thought. The journey is lively, amusing and full of peril with some lovely witty touches such as the annoyingly catchy advertising jingle which Riley can’t shake out of her head. We also get an imaginary friend, Bing Bong, who is part cat, part dolphin, part pink elephant, but he comes dangerously close to being a Jar Jar Binks-style irritant. Happily, Riley outgrows him.
The picture is appropriately thought-provoking and head-spinningly clever but for a story about Emotions it doesn’t quite pack the hoped for emotional punch. In part this is because of the very nature of the conceit: at times Riley seems almost zombie-like rather than a relatable human being - possessed by an invasion of the emotion snatchers.
The characters we spend most time with and should really care about, Joy and Sadness, are a bit, well, one dimensional.
Still, that’s a small price to pay for a hugely ambitious, novel and imaginative animation that will thrill and intrigue children and adults.
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| MISERABLE: Jake Gyllenhaal and Rachel McAdams in Southpaw |
Southpaw (15, 124mins)
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rachel McAdams, Forest Whitaker
How do you make a boxing movie surprising? It’s a hugely cinematic sport and a potential box office champ if done well but we’re all so familiar with the tropes - underdog triumphs against the odds - that the odds are stacked against them.
Still, actors love the chance to buff up and show off their chops in the ring - the latest being Jake Gyllenhaal who is impressively bulked up and mean in Southpaw, a gritty but dull New York-set boxing drama from director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, The Equalizer). Gyllenhaal plays the reigning Light Heavyweight boxing champion, Billy Hope, who must overcome a series of crushing personal and professional disasters to reclaim his crown.
The problem is that in order to turn the poor guy - an orphan made good - into an underdog the filmmakers make him and the movie utterly miserable. His lovely wife (Rachel McAdams) dies in a shoot out, he goes bankrupt and loses his home and his young daughter Leila (Oona Laurence) is taken into care.
Hmm. It’s all desperately grim and slow-moving as we wait for Billy to take the small, painful steps towards rehabilitation - steps which include taking a job as a janitor in a run down local gym in order to receive free training sessions from gym owner and retired fighter Tick Willis (Forest Whitaker).
Hope’s nemesis is a longstanding rival, Miquel Escobar (Miguel Gomez) who is absurdly provocative and cruel, taunting Hope over his wife’s death.
There’s no doubting Gyllenhaal’s commitment to the role and the climactic fight feels absolutely genuine. It’s just not every exciting or emotional.
VERDICT: 2/5
Maggie
(15, 95mins)
Director: Henry Hobson
Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Abigail Breslin, Joely Richardson
Arnie acts! That seems to be the big selling point of plodding zombie drama Maggie - the opportunity to see Arnold Schwarzenegger emote as he grapples with the tragic fate of his daughter Maggie (Abigail Breslin) after she’s infected by a slow-working zombie virus.
With a dearth of action, the actors have to carry the day and Arnie just isn’t up to it.
VERDICT: 2/5
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