Directed by Kelsey Mann. Written by Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein
Nine years ago, Inside Out revealed itself like an epiphany. A fresh idea executed to perfection, its story of how emotions interact to guide us through life’s big and small changes felt less like a story told than one discovered. It mapped our mental infrastructure in surprising and funny ways, made plain the sometimes complicated matters of the mind, and was a hoot for the duration with its vivid performances and imaginative animation.
Inside Out 2 is a welcome continuation and a no-brainer as the opportunity to follow a girl up through the years offers endless potential for an inside look at how life deepens and her emotions along with it. Director Mann and her collaborators settle on an obvious touchpoint for their sequel: puberty.
Riley’s now 13, has great friends, loves to play hockey, and does it well. She and her two besties Grace and Bree are invited to a hockey skills camp led by the coach of the illustrious local high school, but what at first seems a joyful prospect turns into a fraught one: what if she’s not good enough of a hockey player? How will she handle the bombshell news that Bree and Grace won’t be going to the same high school as her? How can she possibly make herself seem cool in the eyes of those oh-so intimidating high schoolers?
Considerations like how your arms are supposed to hang at your sides while you walk or who your favorite band should be in the eyes of others (important stuff!) are unsurprisingly beyond the grasp of our returning core emotions Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Tony Hale), Anger (Lewis Black) and Disgust (Liza Lapira). No worries, dubious experts are here to navigate the minefield.
Joining the emotional executive committee are teenagehood’s fearsome four Ennui, Embarrassment, Envy, and Anxiety, the latter of which quickly ousts Joy from the driver’s seat. Voiced by Maya Hawke, Anxiety is probably a familiar acquaintance for many, and Hawke evokes the frantic, fretting, overthinking existence with uncanny precision. She’ll make you laugh, and squirm a little in uncomfortable recognition.
As Joy and friends try to navigate the emotional gauntlet that is a weekend-long hockey skills camp with a varsity spot on the line, it’s another trip through Riley’s mind as an emotional imbalance must be addressed. New areas of the mind are explored with the same wit and wonder (the introduction of “sarchasms” sees anything yelled across them warped into an annoying, smug putdown) and part of the joy of Mann’s film is just seeing Pixar’s creative and clever people interpret the architecture of the mind.
Inside Out 2 is a spiraling rush at the hands of Anxiety, and the portrayal of more complicated emotions is a success well-served by the simplification for comedic effect. It makes for funny gags, like how Joy cannot relate on any level with Ennui, unable to even say her name, but beyond the sly nods an older audience might appreciate, Inside Out 2 also holds some weight in how it offers adolescents an easily digestible framework for understanding the forces at play within them.
It makes for a charming and comfortable journey that does however retrace the steps of its predecessor, with Anxiety replacing Sadness as the rogue emotion that must be acknowledged and let into Riley’s life. Mann and the Pixar braintrust once again succeed in telling a fun, clever, and touching story, but like repeated exposure to the same brain chemical, the returns diminish slightly in this good, not-quite-great, follow-up whose title could very well be Inside Out 1.5 as it falls short of the evolution that a great sequel delivers.
Mikkel Frederiksen 