Inside Out (2015)

The Netflix fantasy feature Slumberland (2022) is based on the comic strip “Little Nemo in Slumberland” which was created by the American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay in 1905. In this exquisitely drawn psychedelia, Nemo is a boy who embarks on fantastic adventures in his dreams. It’s a flow of subconsciousness at its finest, and it contains no moral lesson.

Written by David Guion and Michael Handelman, and directed by Francis Lawrence, Slumberland has a story to tell and a lesson to teach. Nemo is a girl played by a dependable, but uneventful Marlow Barkley. After losing her dad (Kyle Chandler) at sea, Nemo retreats into the dreamworld as a way to process her grief. There, she meets Flip (Jason Momoa), a Satyr-like creature who helps Nemo see her dad one more time. 

***Spoilers Alert***

By abandoning the original surrealism of a dream for a structured narrative, Slumberland subjects itself to an inevitable comparison with Inception (2010), Inside Out (2015), and other films that analyze the inner workings of the mind from a professional standpoint. It stops being the fantasy world of a child and becomes a 150 million USD session with a child psychotherapist. Nemo’s life with her dad is pure saccharine bliss, modeled after an OTC drug commercial. It is a lazy solution that takes away from the authenticity of Nemo’s journey.  

The longer we travel through Slumberland, the more it looks like a story of her uncle Philip and his unfulfilled desires. The all-white male trio at the helm of this mega production clearly relates more to the struggles of a man-child Philip/Flip than those of a token orphaned girl. Slumberland takes a page from Fight Club’s book by making a macho dream-crasher Momoa to be an alter ego for a dull doorknob salesman portrayed by Chris O’Dowd. Whether this casting reflects certain implicit racial bias depends on your perspective. Momoa does his best to act bonkers and eventually succeeds in his Johnny Depp for Tim Burton impersonation. 

Pixar has been a household name for decades thanks to their timeless animated films that offer a genuine and wholesome family experience and oftentimes a universal message that any living, breathing human being can relate to and Turning Red is no exception - or at least I didn't think it was. I expected Turning Red to receive the praise most Pixar films are accustomed to at this point, if not more, as I genuinely think this is one of the best Pixar offerings in the last decade, which you can read our review of here. It's uniquely stylized with lovable characters and is utterly hilarious, but apparently, since its release, some have decided that they no longer want to be considered living, breathing humans as some of the arguments I've seen could not possibly have been thought of and believed by an actual person, suggesting that the film "promotes rebellion", or stating it "glorifies finding yourself" as if that's a bad thing, and the most egregious of which... 'it's not relatable'.

Take Youtuber Sean Chandlers' video review for example, in which he claims Turning Red is a "specific, targeted film" and states it's very "alienating". I for one cannot see a valid angle in an argument like this when just moments prior to this claim, he raves about how Pixar has always had "deep, rich, human emotions", yet is somehow unable to find them in this film. Chandler does go on to make a couple of respectable points, but when it comes to this specific talking point and the term 'alienating', I'm sorry, but that argument holds no water. There is also this tweet that features a collection of truly baffling reviews that I almost cannot believe are real. We as critics, and people in general for that matter, are surely better than this, right? We should be able to read into subtext but even as blatant as it is here, people are still getting confused. I was genuinely taken aback to see people actively claim that a movie about a 13-year-old going through hormonal changes is 'unrelatable'. Fish, toys, robots, bugs, cars, rats, are all totally relatable but a human Asian girl experiencing the first symptoms of pubescence and the early stages of adulthood? No, that is simply too far out for them. They just can't suspend their disbelief to that extent. And for an experience as universal as puberty, something every human being has gone through, to be labeled as "unrelatable" is just too baseless for me to comprehend.

To be abundantly clear, I have no issue if people have legitimate complaints about the film - it is a very high-energy, over-the-top film and for some that could be a bit much, I totally understand and respect personal taste. But what I can't get behind is people making up arbitrary reasons to spread hate about a film based on something that just isn't there. And saying Turning Red is 'unrelatable' is doing exactly that. I'm curious as to how many of these people have actually lost their children at sea only to find them in an entirely different continent on the other side of the planet, or had to journey through an unfamiliar city to recruit a group of circus performers to assist in defending their village against an army of violent oppressors? You do not have to relate one to one with every aspect of a narrative in order for it to be relatable, it's a foundation of cinema to present humanity in places we aren't familiar with and I really thought we were long past these types of thoughtless criticisms but, apparently not.

Do you love a good heartbreaking cry within the first fifteen minutes of a movie? Then you will love Disney/Pixar’s Up! It’s a story of an unlikely friendship, and a reminder that it’s never too late to pursue your dreams, even when those dreams involve you accidentally kidnapping a neighborhood kid, crossing borders, and putting you both in very dangerous situations (just kidding, of course). If nothing else, Up is a catalyst for some important conversations about media representation and societal norms. Here are some of the topics that are worth discussing as you watch or rewatch this lovely movie.

My favorite part of Up is the love story between Carl and Ellie because Ellie is one of the most interesting and exciting characters in any children’s movie. We meet Ellie when she is a little kid, and she is the opposite of characters like Alice from Alice in Wonderland. She is scrappy, adventure-seeking, smart, and fun; but she is still nurturing and open-minded to young Carl. She leads Carl out of his fears and loneliness. There is a quick montage through their life together, and it is lovely — even the lows. The first set of tears will grace the viewer’s face when Carl and Ellie go through an assumed miscarriage. After recovering from that horrible experience, they move on to their lives together as a couple until the devastating death of sweet Ellie.

As Linda Holmes writes in an article for NPR, why can’t we have a movie about Ellie? In 2009, when Up was released, we hadn’t been fed any animated female leads who weren’t princesses. Ellie would have been a perfect choice to lead this revolution! Six years after Up was released, we were given Inside Out, which has female protagonists who are not princesses and are just as sweet as Up, so moves are slowly being made. Maybe next there can be a… dare I say it… Black, non-princess hero? Fingers crossed!