Inside Out: The Mysteries of Our Feelings

Feelings can be hard to understand, especially when you’re eleven! Pixar’s film, Inside Out, gives us a clever explanation for why feelings are sometimes mysterious and hard to make sense out of. Inside Out tells the story of eleven-year-old Riley, who moves with her parents to San Francisco, leaving behind the life she knew, her friends, and her comfort zone. Told through the eyes of her feelings, we are taken on an adventure as Joy, Anger, Disgust, Fear and Sadness frantically try to make sense of what’s going on. But the more they try to keep things the same, and focusing only on keeping Riley happy through all these changes, the more Riley’s world spins out of control.

The movie takes place inside Riley’s mind: a mysterious land containing colorful, twisted roads of memories and magical islands built from her most treasured moments. Riley’s feelings take the shape of adorable and loveable characters, who respond to the things that happen in Riley’s life, like scoring the winning goal at a hockey game (joy), being called on by the teacher (fear), getting sent to her room by dad (anger). Inside Out shows us that different feelings take charge in different situations, and that all feelings are important because they give us information about what is going on and what to do in that situation. And, most importantly, Inside Out shows us that even unpleasant feelings like sadness are important and helpful.
There are many things that cause feelings to get tangled up and distorted: changing schools, moving, losing a good friend, and even puberty. Sometimes our cute and loveable feeling characters can turn into demanding and bossy monsters. At RFC, we see a lot of these! It can be tricky to understand exactly why these monsters come out and what to do when they do. But Inside Out helps make some sense out of this mystery, and offers a fun time full of laughs!