Free Movie Friday: Inside Out
It was a full house at the showing of Inside Out on Sept. 18. The audience was a mix of ages ranging from children to grandparents, and everyone was looking forward to an evening of entertainment.
The first in PVCC’s 2015-2016 Free Movie Fridays series, the evening started with a short film by Jacob Chang-Rascle, The World is Amazing. This short, a Timelapse Short Film, was created and directed by Chang-Rascle, who also composed the music that accompanied beautiful time-lapse images of nature. It was a breathtaking and soothing start to the evening.
Inside Out is an animated film from Disney-Pixar directed by Peter Docter and Ronaldo del Carmen. The film is about an 11-year-old girl, Riley. Specifically, it is about Riley’s core emotions – Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger – which help Riley navigate through life.
Riley grows up as an only child of two loving parents in the Midwest. Joy is her prevailing emotion through this time, and most of her memories are joyful.Trouble starts when the family has to move to San Francisco for her father’s business. At first, with Joy’s help, Riley tries to make the best of things. But during a struggle between Sadness and Joy, Riley’s core memories are lost, leading to emptiness for Riley. Joy and Sadness leave Disgust, Anger and Fear in charge while they search for the core memories and try to bring them back before all of Riley’s foundational memories are lost to the Memory Dump. During the journey, Joy begins to understand the necessity of Sadness in Riley’s memories – in order for Riley to create new, joyful, memories in her new home, her old memories have to be tinged with a little bit of Sadness.
A family with four children ranging in ages from 7 to 16 agreed to talk about their feelings about the film. Their reactions to the movie ran the same gamut as the emotions portrayed in the film. The 16-year-old boy liked it and thought it was a true portrayal, the 14-year-old girl thought it was repetitive, the 10-year-old boy did not like it, and the 7-year-old girl thought it was scary and sad. My 21-year-old daughter thought it was brilliant. A follow up a few days later showed that they were pointing out each other’s emotions throughout the day: “You’re Anger!”, “You’re Sad,” “You’re showing Disgust,” and so on. Their mom liked that the movie opened the door for them recognize emotions in each other, and even to pinpoint what caused some of the emotions.
Dr. Michael Rahilly held a short question and answer session after the show to discuss the many meanings portrayed in the film, and agreed to an interview later in the week. Rahilly said that, “From a psychologist’s point of view, the movie uses a lot of field’s understanding of emotions and thoughts. Really using them in a very accurate way. What made [the movie] effective from a developmental psychologist’s point of view is that it shows the development of emotional capacity. Riley’s memories were changing because she was passing through the developmental process that happens in middle childhood, that you can only feel one emotion at a time.”
The most important concept in this movie for children and adults, according to Rahilly, is recognizing emotions and their roles; keeping emotions as an important aspect of life. The movie showed the primary emotions. Everyone has the capacity to feel them and understand them. They show up in the first year of life. The next are secondary emotions that are basically the same emotions but directed toward the self. For instance, Pride would be Joy about the Self.
Inside Out will be released on Digital HD on Oct. 13 and Blu-Ray on Nov. 3.
The next Free Movie Friday feature will be The End of the Tour on Oct. 16.
