Film Review - Inside Out 2
Pixar's second outing inside Riley's head imaginatively deploys puberty-induced new emotions, but lacks the poignancy of the original
Inside Out (2015) was a blip of brilliance in the decidedly inconsistent years following Pixar’s golden era of back-to-back masterpieces. Pete Docter and Ronaldo Del Carmen’s tale of an eleven-year-old girl called Riley and her emotional crisis, personified by various feelings in her brain, struck a chord with audiences worldwide. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a perfectly formed gem that should have won Best Picture, and I’m unashamed to admit I was moved to tears by it.
Now we get the sequel, doubtless demanded from up on high by Disney’s corporate bigwigs. Inside Out didn’t need a sequel, but as it stands, Inside Out 2 could have been much, much worse. It certainly isn’t up to the standard of the original, but it was never going to be. Instead, new director Kelsey Mann takes over from Pete Docter (who stays on as executive producer), overseeing the animation to Pixar’s usual high standard, with a screenplay by Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein that tackles Riley two years later, having had her thirteenth birthday, just entering puberty.
With Riley looking forward to going to camp where she tries out for a high school ice hockey team, everything seems to be running smoothly with Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Tony Hale), and Disgust (Liz Lapira). However, an alarm on the control console in the brain starts flashing, announcing the start of puberty. A wrecking ball smashes through the window, and a construction crew start making modifications and generally causing chaos. They leave signs that warn puberty is messy, which pretty much sums up what to expect from this film.
Shortly afterwards, new emotions arrive including Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), who is rather hilarious, and most pivotally, Anxiety (Maya Hawke), the uncontrollable force acting as well-meaning antagonist. Soon Anxiety takes over the controls, locking Joy and the others away in a jar (“We’re suppressed emotions!”) and causing Riley to make bad decisions at the ice hockey camp. Hurt by news they won’t be at her new school, Riley ignores her lifelong friends (whom she also fears will be deemed uncool). Instead, she tries to ingratiate herself with the cool kids in the ice hockey team she wants to join. To fit in, she pretends to dislike bands she secretly likes, becomes more sarcastic, and isn’t true to her core beliefs about herself, which are in danger of being overwritten by Anxiety. Can Joy and the others save the day?
Chaotic shenanigans ensue, inside and outside Riley’s head. The zaniness of the first film is back, with perilous journeys down the stream of consciousness, and across “sar-chasms” (chasms created when Riley makes a sarcastic remark). There are some amusing new minor characters, such as a video game warrior upon whom Riley once had a massive crush (he’s also part of a monument called “Mount Crushmore”), and the new emotions are entertaining, if not particularly well-developed (Anxiety notwithstanding). Kensington Tallman, Diane Lane, and Kyle MacLachlan also give good vocal performances as Riley and her parents.
On the minus side, there’s nothing here as tear-jerking as, say, Riley’s obsolete imaginary friend Bingbong (one of the most heartrending, existential crisis-inducing moments of the original), or as wise as the original’s inherent treatise on the importance of sadness. That said, the film does do a decent job of conveying the messiness of puberty, with its overwhelming extreme emotions, learning to control them, and the chaos of having an anxiety attack. For that reason, the film will probably still resonate with many audiences, even though it follows very similar plot beats to the original, without quite the same poignancy.
All things considered, whilst I didn’t love Inside Out 2 the way I did its exceptional predecessor, it’s still a damn sight better than the other animated family fare currently sloshing around in cinemas. When faced with ghastly alternatives such as the cynically algorithmic wretchedness of The Garfield Movie, this becomes a lot more attractive.
(Originally published at Medium.)
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At least I'm not the only person who has their anxiety hijack the rest of their emotions on a daily basis.