Every now and then a little gem of a film comes along and knocks you for six. Or it comes ‘Out of left field’ as the Yanks would say.

Inside Out follows the life of an 11-year old Minnesota girl called Riley (Kaitlyn Dias), who is experiencing life’s ups and downs and all the life changing events that come with growing up just as most girls do.

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Riley

For Riley her turmoil’s start when her parents (Kyle Maclachlan and Diane Lane) have to move to San Francisco because her Dad’s job relocation. She leaves behind her best friend and her love of playing for the local ice hockey team, not to mention that the new house is quite pokey and the removal team appear to have lost their belongings.

All this stress let’s her emotions go into overdrive and we see inside Riley’s mind and meet the five emotions that guide her actions from a command centre in Headquarters.

These emotions are Joy (Amy Poehler from Saturday Night Live, Blades of Glory, Parks and Recreation), Sadness (Phyllis Smith from The Office US and Bad Teacher), Fear (Bill Hader from Saturday Night Live, Superbad, Paul, Monster University) Anger (Lewis Black voice over artist and stand-up) and Disgust (Mindy Kaling from the Mindy Project, Wreck-it Ralph and The Office US).

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The Emotion Team

Part of their job is to store memories for their hosts in the form of crystal balls. To start with most of her memories have been happy thoughts and the really important meaningful ones in her life, become core memories.

These core memories help power Riley’s inner Island of Personality. The islands are visible through the control centre rear window looking like they are in an Arizona landscape. Each of the five islands are in the form of mini fairgrounds and are called Honesty, Hockey, Friendship, Goofball and most importantly Family Island.

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Islands of Personality

Due to a freak accident Joy and Sadness are sucked outside of the command centre whilst holding on to some core memories and they must find their way back to Headquarters to restore Riley’s happy memories before it’s too late.

Pixar have created a brilliant concept with the hilarious head characters who are responsible for creating memories and driving our emotions. It’s not an entirely new idea as I remember a comic strip in the Beano called The Numskulls which had little characters controlling the daily routine of a man called Ed (get it?) who in later years was drawn as a boy.

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Joy and Sadness must find their way back.

The action shifts from the chaos inside Riley’s head, to her and her and her parents talking over breakfast, playing in the snow or generally goofing around. We also see inside the parents head which have similar characters which is one of the funniest scene in the movie.

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Family meal time

A great deal of thought has gone into the making of this film, 5 years-worth, according to Director Pete Docter.

When the two characters, Joy and Sadness are trying to find their way back to the command centre, the creative Pixar team designed a fantastic landscape that wouldn’t look out of place in a Salvador Dali painting. For that matter we are also introduced to an abstract world worthy of Picasso.

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Bing Bong!

The couple team up with a strange Dr. Seuss type character called Bing Bong (Richard Kind from Gotham and Sesame Street) who was Riley’s imaginary friend composed of part pink elephant, part cat, part dolphin and part cotton candy. Bing Bong could turn out to be the kid’s favourite Christmas present this year. Just a little heads up there for any parents reading this.

However, the real hero of the film is the emotion Joy, who leads the group and is always enthusiastic, positive and cheerful and pretty much in charge of the Emotion Headquarters which is evident when Fear, Disgust and Anger find themselves having to run the operation by themselves.

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This is definitely the must-see movie of the year but be warned. As funny as it is it will also bring you to tears in that typical Pixar / Disney fashion.

My favourite line of the movie is from Anger who after seeing slices of pizza with a covering of broccoli on top exclaims “Congratulations San Francisco, you've ruined Pizza! First the Hawaiians, and now YOU!”

The film isn’t so much about the places where you spend your life but who you spend it with.

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Out in cinemas from July 24

Certificate U

Running time 94 mins

See the Trailer