Inside Out

Inside Out, the latest animated movie from Pixar shows what goes on in an 11-year-old girl’s head as, her life dislocated by a family move from rural Minnesota to San Francisco, she begins the journey towards maturity.
 

Riley’s emotions are depicted us cartoon characters in a brain control centre – Sadness, Fear, Disgust, Anger, and the hyper-active Joy, a Tinker-Bell like figure who feels duty-bound to deliver happiness 24/7. We see a vivid representation of Riley’s mind – the glowing balls of memory; the fairground islands representing key strands of her personality such as Family, Honesty and Friendship; the train of thought; the abstract thinking zone; the Dream Studios.

Riley hates life in the city, and we watch as her personality is shaken. The sweet child becomes mouthy and sarcastic. Joy eventually realises that at times she must hand over the controls to Sadness, for growing up inevitably involves loss and pain.

Riley’s loving and (mostly) attentive parents lose their consistently sparkly little girl and gain a more thoughtful, deeper, maturer child on the brink of puberty.

Though the action flags at times, Inside Out is a brilliant piece of work, with something to say to all of us, not just 11-year-olds. It’s based on state-of-the-art neuroscience – although there was disagreement over whether ‘Love’ should be included among the emotions or whether it is a ‘learned response.’  

Pete Docter with daughter Elie whose 11-year-old self inspired the movie

Pete Docter, the film’s co-writer and co-director is a Christian. He prays about life and work, is active in First Presbyterian Church in Berkeley, marvels at God’s creativity, and believes Christian faith highlights the importance of good relationships rooted in relationship with God.

‘I think that’s what Jesus brings,’ he says. ‘A personal relationship with God that is really unique.’

Someone’s said Inside Out gives them a new way of discussing each day with their family. ‘Who was driving today? Joy, or fear, or…….?’

Riley’s emotions are almost always in control of her reactions. But does this reflect reality? My experience is that as we mature, we become aware of a ‘higher me’, looking down on our seething emotions. This ‘higher me’ decides which emotion will shape our thinking and drive our responses.

Our own stories will all be different. In my experience, during times of deep sadness, my ‘higher me’ has opted to ‘choose joy’, not denying the sadness, but denying that the sadness is the whole story; not living in a whirlwind of delusional hyperactivity, but quietly trusting that joy will be resurrected.

What Pete Docter doesn’t explain in depicting the theme park of Riley’s mind is how God interacts with us. Where is God in the maelstrom of our emotions? Again in my experience, I believe I connect with God in my deepest self. God is the voice prompting me to choose the way of joy and love. The creative energy to make that choice is God’s gift to me.

So I’m conscious both of a high place, from where I overlook my personality, memories and emotions, and of a deep place of connection where I interface with the God who reveals to me the true self I am becoming, and invites me to share the controls.

The relationship between Joy and Sadness in Inside Out is intriguing. Some of us need to learn with Riley’s Joy that it’s OK to be sad. We may have been brought up believing we need to be relentlessly positive and brave (perhaps for the sake of others). We may have been told that ‘real men don’t cry.’ As Christians we may have assumed that God looks for joy in our lives no matter what. In fact it’s OK to acknowledge our sadness.

Others of us, however, following trauma or bereavement feel we will never know joy again, perhaps even thinking that experiencing joy would be a betrayal of those who have gone. The poet Wordsworth describes in a poem being uplifted by a sudden happiness, and then feeling guilt that he has temporarily forgotten the pain of losing his young daughter Catherine. He was beginning to learn that despite the enduring sadness, happiness will return. He called his poem Surprised by Joy. Some of us need to allow ourselves to be surprised by joy.

At the end of Inside Out, Riley is 12. Her story is just beginning. Christians believe that our stories will continue in another dimension, where there is no sadness. A dimension where we will find to our challenge and consolation that the many of those forgotten memories consigned to darkness in Riley’s brain will live again.

When Docter’s team were stuck in thinking how Joy would react, they looked to him as an example. ‘Joy is you, Pete.’ As Christians may something be seen in our lives of the Joy whose other name is God.

(Christian Viewpoint column from the Highland News dated 6th August 2015)