Top 20 Films of the 2010s–#4

By Tanner Smith

Continuing my countdown of my top 20 favorite films of the decade, here’s a recap: 20) Mad Max: Fury Road, 19) Fruitvale Station, 18) Hugo, 17) Parasite, 16) Spotlight, 15) Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, 14) Midnight Special, 13) Take Shelter, 12) The Spectacular Now, 11) The Social Network, 10) Frances Ha, 9) Get Out, 8) Gravity, 7) The Dirties, 6) Boyhood, 5) Whiplash…

4) INSIDE OUT (2015)

Disney/PIXAR, what have you given us this decade? “Toy Story 3,” “Toy Story 4,” “Coco”–all of them are great. “The Good Dinosaur,” “Cars 2” and “Cars 3”–never saw them, saved my money for “Incredibles 2,” which was really good (albeit very late to the party). Brave–eh. “Monsters University”–not bad. “Finding Dory”–very good.

Disney/PIXAR has had some ups and downs these past 10 years, but that doesn’t matter…because this decade, they also gave us Inside Out, one of the best Disney films I’ve ever seen and probably the best Pixar film I’ve seen too (right up there with “Up” and “Toy Story 2”).

It has an interesting idea–the emotions we feel are manifested by our own inner universes–and it’s able to do just about everything great that can be done with it. The personalized emotions that help make a girl named Riley who she is are Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), and Disgust (Mindy Kaling). Joy is the chief emotion, which constantly throws her overboard whenever Sadness wants to step in and ruin core emotions with her very touch. As Riley moves from Minnesota to California with her parents, Joy has to help her make the best of it. But something goes wrong, and Joy and Sadness are ejected from the master controls. Fear, Anger, and Disgust try to take charge in the meantime, resulting in Riley snapping at her parents, not trying to make new friends, and even thinking about running away. Joy and Sadness have to work together in order to make their way back to the control room to settle Riley’s emotional state.

Brilliant. Bright. Funny. Imaginative. Profound. Moving. Sometimes sad. All of these adjectives can be used to describe the power of “Inside Out.”

This world is amazing. Memories are created and stored in collections of glass spheres, whether they’re short-term, long-term, or forgotten entirely. And there are also theme parks connected with one another, with the themes being dreams, nightmares, her favorite sport (hockey), imagination, and so on. It’s amazing to see how this “world” inside a person’s head works. There’s a dark abyss where forgotten memories are stored and eventually fade away, a dream-land that resembles a Hollywood studio where actors act out Riley’s dreams and nightmares, and all sorts of inventive components. As Joy and Sadness go on this journey through the subconscious, they encounter many strange things like abstractness, fears, daydreams, and even a forgotten imaginary friend, named Bing Bong (Richard Kind).

But the story and character development are just as impressive as the environment they’re set in. It balances funny and dramatic perfectly, as we laugh at the insane inventiveness of how this world works and how some of the emotions run it (or try to run it), but more importantly, we learn something that most of us don’t like to think about: the importance of the emotion of sadness. This is exactly what the overall film is about: balance. Joy and Sadness have to learn to get along, and Joy constantly pushes her aside because she feels Riley doesn’t need her, but over time, she realizes that not only do they have to work together but that Sadness is more important to the team of emotions than anyone would give her credit for–in fact, Joy learns in a brilliant scene late in the film that Joy and Sadness are essential together.

What I really love about this development is that the film stays true to its own message it’s been pushing all along: that it’s OK to be sad because that’s part of growing up. In order to adapt, we need all of our emotions in order to get through whatever. There are many things in life we can’t get back, and “Inside Out” knows that. Instead of bringing back many elements from the first couples acts of the story, they stay gone and are replaced with new ones, because that’s part of the process of coming of age. For a Disney film to play this message of stuff-happens-and-you-gotta-deal-with-it, this is pretty gutsy and very much appreciated.

I would love to see a sequel to “Inside Out” that shows the difficulties of Riley growing up, but I would also love to see spinoffs with other people and their emotions trying to cope with whatever change comes their way.

I love “Inside Out.” I wanted this to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars–I already knew it was a dead lock for Best Animated Feature, but that’s beside the point. This isn’t merely the best animated film of the decade–it’s one of the best films, period.