Classic American films: Inside Out – Pixar’s take on the human mind remains one of the studio’s best efforts

In this regular feature series on some of the most talked-about films, we examine the legacy of classics and re-evaluate modern blockbusters. We continue this week with the 2015 film Inside Out .

From Toy Story to The Incredibles, Monsters Inc to Up, Pixar animated films take a high concept as far as it will go. In the case of Monsters Inc, that means running out of steam about halfway through; in the case of Up it means approaching the profound.

Directed by Pete Docter and Ronnie del Carmen, and released to great acclaim in 2015, Inside Out has a wonderful central conceit in which the human mind is a colourful Rube Goldberg machine controlled by a committee of emotions.

In charge – for now – is Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler) a huge-eyed sprite with a permanent spring in her step. She’s joined by Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and Anger (Lewis Black): a colour-coded sitcom cast with exaggerated characteristics. Anger, for example, is an apoplectic New Yorker in a too-tight short-sleeved shirt. In the live-action version he’d be played by Dennis Franz.

Joy and company inhabit the brain of a little girl called Riley. Their job is to protect her core memories – depicted as huge shiny bowling balls – but things get complicated when her parents move to San Francisco and everything starts to go wrong. Even the fast food is confusing. “Congratulations, San Francisco!” fumes Anger, “you’ve ruined pizza!”

Gradually Sadness, a mopey depressive in a baggy jumper, manages to infect Riley’s core memories, and she and Joy must journey through Riley’s subconscious to retrieve them and restore her equilibrium. Imagine Christopher Nolan’s Inception rewritten by Willy Wonka and you’re halfway there.