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'Inside Out': There's verve in the animation and wit in the byplay

( PG ) ( Monitor Movie Guide )

The film about the emotions living inside an 11-year-old girl is one of Pixar's weirder entries.

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Disney-Pixar/AP
Characters, from left, Anger, voiced by Lewis Black, Disgust, voiced by Mindy Kaling, Joy, voiced by Amy Poehler, Fear, voiced by Bill Hader, and Sadness, voiced by Phyllis Smith appear in a scene from 'Inside Out,' in theaters on June 19.
  • By Peter Rainer Film critic

The new Pixar movie “Inside Out,” directed and co-written by Pete Docter, is one of the studio’s weirder entries. It’s about Riley, a feisty 11-year-old Minnesota girl who is disconsolate when her parents relocate to San Francisco. The real attraction here is the menagerie of featured inhabitants in her head: blue-haired Joy, seething red Anger, purple Fear, green Disgust, and blue Sadness.

As Riley grows ever sadder, these characters, housed in an antiseptic, control-paneled room, take turns trying to right the situation. It’s all very Freudian, or Jungian, or whatever, and little kids may get lost, but there’s real verve in the animation and wit in the byplay. Grade: B+ (Rated PG for thematic elements, action.)

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