When the first island crumbled. My daughter just turned 19 so we’re well past playing our version of silly monkey. When the absurdity island crumbled, it brought me back to those lost days and I had a profound lump of bittersweet in my throat.
When Joy took the controls after Sadness in the middle of the family hug. When the camera flew back to Riley and the subtle change in her face in the midst of that sadness-filled hug - I, a grown man of 46, lost my shit. No mere lump in the throat. No mere sneaky tears rolling down my cheek. I was audibly sobbing and it took all my resolve to choke it back to not disturb my fellow movie goers. There’s a thread somewhere here where I reveal the times I cried due to entertainment. Never have I had such a powerful, barely controllable outbreak like this.
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Jesus, dude. You’re going to get my waterworks going again!
I basically cried at everything - from “Awww, sweet notalgic memories” to “Oh no, a child suffering” to “Shit, this is givng me flashbacks to depression,” to "Yes, yes, it’s true that sadness is healthy, and if you push yourself to be joyful all the time, you will break yourself.
I thought it was really well made, and my 7yo seemed to like it. Hopefully if I watch it again, I won’t have quite as violent a reaction.
It was only explicitly mentioned at the beginning but it was metaphorically very important to the story. The main plot of the movie was Chihiro lost in a strange environment and having to overcome her fears. The scene at the beginning where her family was moving to a new town linked that story to the real world.
I haven’t seen it yet (going tonight) but I thought it was interesting in the trailers that Mom’s emotions are all female, Dad’s are all male, but Riley’s are a mix. Kinda makes sense for a tomboy girl (she is, right? I’m guessing so since she likes to play hockey). Cool stuff.
I did think it was a nice visual portrayal of the human mental “system”. Liked how they designed the interior of the mind, with core memory storage, long term memory, etc. I commented to hubby as we were walking to the car that they had the beginning illustration of how insanity happens. Loved the various glimpses into the heads of other people and the dog and cat at the end!
I didn’t cry or even feel like it at any time during it. I wonder if that’s because I don’t have kids. Would be interesting to see if the tear-jerker response to the movie correlates with parenthood.
Oh, god, yes, it’s a kid thing. My daughter is six, and as I watched the movie I thought about her wonderful head, and about the changes that I know will come to it. The loss of goofball island, the death of the imaginary friend, the breakup of friendships–these are the mundane tragedies that afflict everyone as they grow up. For me, they’re all in the past. For my daughter, they’re coming and I can do nothing to stop them.
Heh. I thought one of the nice subplots was how Joy realized that Sadness was an important member of the team who could actually lead to more Joy.
The death of Bing Bong is certainly emotional and it primed the pumps but I didn’t start tearing until Sadness took control of the board. BTW I have no kids.
I took it to mean that as people develop into adults, in the same way that all of the emotions wind up working together, they also all end up reflecting the person as a whole rather than individual components.
I don’t know if parents feel more strongly about it than non-parents, but my wife and I (non-parents) were definitely teary at points. Stupid wayward dust motes…
I have no kids either and thought this was an emotional gut punch of a film. I’m not surprised though, since Pete Doctor also gave us "Up" which may have the most poignant scenes (the first 10 minutes) than any animated film ever made.
If you have kids, you’ll resonate with the scenes from a parents perspective.
If you have no kids, like me, you’ll resonate with the scenes from your memories as a child.
Remember when they take a shortcut through Abstract Thought and are mutated into flat figurines Joy is just a green star and Sadness is just a blue teardrop.
I would put this square in the middle of my list. There were lots of moments to love, and I was certainly emotionally swept up where they wanted me to be, but I didn’t like the story much. There were too many abstract concepts made manifest to get a good grasp of everything going on, and it just made me think too much about things that would expose the plot holes.
I would love to see a story about Riley without being in her head, and I would love to see more about the conflicts between everyone’s team of emotions, i.e. all the side-story stuff that was hinted at. But a story where suddenly she has no core memories and joy and sadness suddenly vanish from her rational thought for no logical reason? I couldn’t grasp or connect with that.
Not without some logical motivation for them disappearing. Moving to San Francisco isn’t enough to do something as dramatic as that. Maybe if I suffered a mental illness like depression or bipolar disease, but not because my core memories disappeared into a void.
Going “flat” after a loss, or really being left only with fear, disgust and anger … not yet letting yourself feel the sadness and move into acceptance?
For a child a move, even only far enough that schools have changed, is a huge stress.
