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Pixar movies have a way of pushing sentimental buttons and getting us in our feelings. Last weekend, I opened Disney Plus to stream Inside Out, a film I hadn’t seen since I was a teenager. I chuckled at its cleverness and weighed its message about the need for unpleasant emotions, and by the end of it, I needed tissues.
Rewatching 11-year-old Riley finally experience much-needed emotions reminded me why a sequel was well-earned. Is Inside Out 2 as moving as its predecessor, to the point that it’ll bring the audience to tears?
Though this film didn’t evoke the strong emotional response from me that the first one did, it delivered another sincere narrative that, combined with humor and stunning visuals, still won over this moviegoer. The sequel returns to Riley’s mind and brings in more emotions that arise when she hits puberty. Riley is now 13 and her headquarters continue to hold the OG emotions of Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Tony Hale, replacing Bill Hader) and Disgust (Liza Lapira, replacing Mindy Kaling). Riley is still into hockey and is starting to show early signs of being a cat person.
On the way to hockey camp, she gets some unexpected news that throws high school plans into uncertainty. Before Joy and her expressive posse know it, new emotions are in the mix, including Anxiety (voiced by Maya Hawke), an orange ringleader with wide eyes and untamable hair. Anxiety is able to wriggle Riley out of a problem Joy only amplified, and that’s all she needs to see before determining that more of her — and less of the first five emotions — is necessary.
Ayo Edebiri is the small blue emotion Envy.
With Anxiety at the helm, teenage Riley shrinks herself to fit in with older hockey kids, especially the top player Valentina. She finds acceptance and comrades on the hockey rink but hides interests, swallows inedible protein bars, and drifts from her best friends.
Mirroring the essence of the first film, Inside Out 2’s storyline finds the characters on a journey to return to headquarters to rescue Riley. Nothing beats the magic of experiencing for the first time the detailed world that lies within Riley, but the quest includes new stops, at a prisonlike place that holds Riley’s secrets and in the back of her mind, which also happens to be where Joy has been chucking scores of Riley’s bad memories. Between Anxiety’s and Joy’s meddling, there’s quite a bit impacting their sporty, blonde host.
Early on, an interesting new addition to the setting is introduced: Riley’s system of beliefs. It connects to her sense of self, a structure of glowing, overlapping hoops in headquarters. Like the core memories before it, this statement piece is essential to the story.
The system of beliefs in Inside Out 2.
New additions include Ayo Edibiri as Envy, a small, turquoise-blue being that’s quick to cheer on Anxiety. Paul Walter Hauser stars as Embarrassment, a shy, rose-colored giant, and Adèle Exarchopoulos steps in as Ennui, a navy, phone-obsessed emotion with a chic haircut that represents the teen brand of indifference/boredom that parents may recognize. Humor again comes from seeing how the characters behave: Embarrassment tightening his too-small hoodie and anxiety pounding energy drinks.
Sadness, whose affinity to flopping down on hard surfaces never gets old, gets to do more in the sequel, but I could have used more of the barely there Ennui. Meanwhile, Pouchy, a wacky new sidekicklike character similar to Dora the Explorer’s backpack, appears a few times and has the potential to make audiences laugh as hard as Inside Out’s imaginary friend Bing Bong made them cry.
Visually, Inside Out 2 is stunning. The animation is so detailed that I often felt like the solid-colored cartoon characters could step off the screen at any moment. Anxiety and Joy’s conversations are the most compelling, as the emotions spar over what they think is best for Riley. Anxiety wants to prepare her for everything that could go wrong, and Joy has been cheerily discarding Riley’s unhappy memories. The answer may be neither of those.
Going into the sequel to a rightfully beloved movie, I decided to let Joy take the lead, and I chose optimism. I walked away satisfied, if not completely transformed. Parts of Inside Out 2 could seem too familiar to fans, but with effective humor, incredible animation and a willingness to explore a relevant new message, it’s worth once again asking the question that kicked off the first film: What is going on inside someone’s head?
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