directed by Kelsey Mann
written by Meg LeFauve, Dave Holstein and Mann
Nine years after Pixar charmed audiences around the world with Inside Out, an animated movie about the inner workings of a human mind, presented as a work place with five anthropomorphic emotions, they're back with its sequel, Inside Out 2, which, as I write this, is apparently charming audiences even more than the first one did to the tune of a billion dollars at the box office.
Set several years after the events of the first film, Inside Out 2 begins with Riley (Kensington Tallman) enjoying her middle school years with her two best friends Grace (Grace Lu) and Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green), who do everything with her, including play her favorite sport, hockey. When the three of them are invited to a summer hockey camp, Riley couldn't be happier. As a result, the emotions residing inside her, Joy (Amy Poehler), Anger (Lewis Black), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Tony Hale), and Disgust (Liza Lapira) live in a pretty harmonious balance especially since together, they are charged with taking care of the most important thing Riley has: her sense of self, which is the sum total of all of her memories and beliefs formed as a result.
Suddenly, Riley is thrown for a loop when a number of things happen. First, she hits puberty, and the resulting hormonal swings suddenly mean that the five emotions' control console no longer works as it should, and on top of that, four new emotions arrive at headquarters: Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edibiri), Ennui (Adel Exarchopoulos) and Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser). Then, the real doozy hits when Grace and Bree, en route to hockey camp, tell Riley that they'll be moving to a different high school. As a direct result, Anxiety comes to the fore, hatching an elaborate plan for Riley to make friends with the popular varsity hockey players led by Val Ortiz (Lilimar). Faced with the imminent departure of her friends, Riley wants to ensure that she makes new ones at hockey camp, and Anxiety, as a result, overpowers Joy and the other five emotions, imprisoning them in the bowels of Riley's mind, and sets her own plan in motion even if it means mistreating Grace and Bree and basically going against everything she believes in, thus eroding her sense of self. Joy and the others are now in a race of time to save Riley from the consequences of violating her own belief system, as Anxiety, now in control makes one questionable decision after another. Will they make it in time?
With the exception of the first sequel to Toy Story, sequels to Pixar films have an unfortunate tendency to regurgitate what happened in the film that came before them, albeit with a variation or two. This was true for sequels to Finding Nemo and even The Incredibles, and if I'm completely honest it's a bit on display here as well. Beat for beat, Inside Out 2 basically repeats the story of the first movie, from the happy status quo, to the disruption to Riley's life that involves someone moving away, to grappling with new, difficult emotions. That said, even though the film retreads familiar ground, it does so astonishingly well, and with, I daresay, some pretty authentic emotional beats.
It was a masterstroke to introduce Anxiety as the film's actual antagonist, because grappling with anxiety is something that virtually everyone in the audience, regardless of their age, gender or social background has done at one point or another in their lives, and is probably why the film has connected with so many people all around the world. There's something really fascinating about the design choices made for the character, who, unlike the generally cute and cuddly-looking characters is quite distinctly ugly and haggard-looking, a look that, surprisingly, goes rather well with her domineering, obsessive personality. From my own experience I found it totally believable that anxiety could essentially take over Riley's mind, and I'm pretty sure a lot of other people in the audience could relate to that, too.
This is when Pixar are in peak form; when they create stories that, rather than pander to one interest group or another, really manage to tell compelling stories to which people from all walks of life can completely relate. May they continue to make movies like this.
9.5/10
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