At the risk of re-angering the RottenTomatoes swarm now that they’ve finally tired of shouting at me, I thought this parody PSA (from Shirin Najafi) about “Pixar Depression” nicely encapsulated the reasons Inside Out left me a little cold.
“Feeling sad, because your furniture hasn’t arrived? Because your father took a call on his cellphone?
Then you may have Pixar Depression.
Symptoms include: sadness due to slight changes in perfect upbringings. […] Underlying causes may include moving to a four-story townhouse in the country’s most expensive city.
Pixar depression hurts, and your loving, married, healthy, faithful, biological mother and father in the top income bracket can help.”
For me it’s less about having a problem with characters having no real problems than the fact that about as much happens in this one-minute video as happens in all of Inside Out. Girl has emotions in different rooms, goes to school, the end. Also, I would have called it “Disney Depression,” to avoid besmirching the good name of Wall E and Nemo.
Now if the star of the movie had been Bing Bong and not some whiny child, I would have been totally onboard. Chin up, kid, it’s mostly downhill from here anyway.