 | Genre: Children, Drama, Comedy |
With Sadness as one of the main characters and a stressful time period as the human characters focus, be prepared for some sad scenes. The film is great for showing what depression really feels like, both in the overload of sadness way and in the dulled, no-emotions way. As well as this, the interaction of the five emotions and the complexity of them all is clever and makes a lot of sense; for example, Disgust is also in charge of Riley's feelings about looking good and while Riley is lead by Joy, her stressed and grumpy dad is led by Anger.
The fact that all the characters explicitly have the same five emotions controlling their mind makes it easy to see all the characters as similarly relatable and complex. The grumpy dad is not just grumpy, as he has Joy, Sadness, Disgust and Fear, just like Riley. A ending scene shows the minds of other characters, including a dog with five dog emotions pressing a simple keyboard and a cat with five cat emotions running amok and wandering over a keyboard as detailed as the humans. It's moments like this that keep what could have been a very upsetting film funny and lets the adventure scenes feel exciting rather than nerve-wrecking.
The mind-as-controlled-by-tiny-people idea is hardly new, but the people being emotions rather than senses or just physically controlling the body seems fresh and inventive. It's easy to picture your own five emotions, try to imagine your own islands and wonder what your own core memories are. Wait, what are islands and core memories? You'll have to watch to find out! Rush to the cinema while it's still there, or wait to grab it on DVD if you think you'll be crying too much in the cinema to see it all.
The fact that all the characters explicitly have the same five emotions controlling their mind makes it easy to see all the characters as similarly relatable and complex. The grumpy dad is not just grumpy, as he has Joy, Sadness, Disgust and Fear, just like Riley. A ending scene shows the minds of other characters, including a dog with five dog emotions pressing a simple keyboard and a cat with five cat emotions running amok and wandering over a keyboard as detailed as the humans. It's moments like this that keep what could have been a very upsetting film funny and lets the adventure scenes feel exciting rather than nerve-wrecking.
The mind-as-controlled-by-tiny-people idea is hardly new, but the people being emotions rather than senses or just physically controlling the body seems fresh and inventive. It's easy to picture your own five emotions, try to imagine your own islands and wonder what your own core memories are. Wait, what are islands and core memories? You'll have to watch to find out! Rush to the cinema while it's still there, or wait to grab it on DVD if you think you'll be crying too much in the cinema to see it all.
