People just love Inside Out, the new Pixar entertainment, which takes place mostly inside the mind of an eleven-year-old girl, Riley, after she’s uprooted and moved by her parents from an idyllic Minnesota to a grim, fog-bound San Francisco. They love it in the way that everyone got used to loving Pixar movies, back in the days when every new outing was magical and the company could do no wrong — before the disappointment of Brave, that is, and the sequelitis of Cars 2 and Monsters University. They love it because it’s about childhood and memory and growing up and loss and sadness and oh it will just make you cry and cry and cry.
As you can probably tell, I didn’t entirely love it myself, though after holding out for two-thirds of the movie I did end up choking up a little bit. I won’t tell you exactly what was happening when I succumbed, but suffice it to say it involved Bing Bong, an elephant-ish imaginary friend who’s been rattling around Riley’s subconscious ever since she outgrew playing with him years ago. If you see the movie, you’ll recognize the moment; just have your handkerchief ready and you’ll get through it.
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