The highly anticipated sequel to the Inside Out franchise has finally made its arrival and it did not disappoint. This film dives deep into the inner working of the mind as a child struggles with the transition into their teens and hitting puberty. Your emotions are all out of whack and nothing feels normal, yet it is all completely normal. This is a prime period of time for growing up and becoming the kind of person you want to be and every single decision you make is a step in that direction. So let’s discuss how this film made such a great follow-up to the original.
Story & Theme
Pixar is well known for their complex, emotional storytelling and they do not shy away from that with this film. The original five emotions: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust face a huge struggle when four new emotions (we won’t include Nostalgia for this purpose) come in to stir up Riley’s entire personality. Change is never something that is easy and especially when it feels like it negates everything you’ve worked so hard to polish to perfection.
A common struggle that Joy, our main emotion, has difficulty overcoming is the fact that Riley can’t be perfect. She learns that she can’t force Riley to be a certain person and throw out all the negative memories, because those are all pieces that make Riley who she is. Through all of this, Joy has to learn that with all the baggage Riley carries, she can still be an amazing person regardless of the good and the bad, because it’s all about what you do with that information and memories. This is part of what makes Anxiety such a great antagonist for this story, because she really is right about a lot of the things she says that Riley needs, for example how she needs to focus on networking amongst the teams to get accepted and seen as a serious player. However, the execution is what is wrong from Anxiety’s point of view. Riley shouldn’t have to change who she is in a negative way in order to be accepted, she must learn to find the balance between work and play in order to still achieve her goals without tearing down other relationships in the process.
Emotional Depth
As we mentioned, Pixar is known for their deeply emotional stories that resonate with real-life scenarios. Inside Out 2 deals directly with the most complex of emotions and how they can affect a person from the inside-out. While the original five emotions are quite simple in who they are and what they do, Anxiety, Embarrassment, Envy and Ennui are complex and there is much more to unwrap about who they are. Specifically as Anxiety is the one pulling all the ropes, they have very strong ways of reacting to everything, because overthinking is a huge portion of what Anxiety is and it can push and pull a person in so many directions at once.
As many people have pointed out, Disney and Pixar films are often aimed at children, but this specific film hits home for more than just children, but adults too, who were younger when the first film was released and now we have grown and learned so much just like Riley. It feels like some people actually grew up with this film and it develops a deeper connection to its audience in this way. Everyone deals with emotions and figuring out how to manage them, and this film does a great job at making them feel so real and accurate to what so many people struggle with.
Overall Message & Impact
I have read over many, many reviews on this film and can really see that people feel so seen with how Anxiety as an emotion was portrayed in this film. The past few years, with covid and the way the economy has changed so much since then, people have really struggled. Having a place where we can all come together and feel heard and understood is so important in hard times where people need to come together and remember that there is still good in the world and we don’t just have to live to struggle. Sometimes people just want to feel seen and this film downs a great job at making people feel understood and their emotions being portrayed accurately. Anxiety is a very real and very serious thing and it affects everyone in ways that sometimes are hard to describe. So for a film to find a way to visually bring these emotions to life is so important, especially for them to be made accurate. Everyone has emotions and struggles both inside and out, and this film does an absolutely amazing job at showing that to everyone and making a space where anyone of any age can feel understood. Bravo Pixar.
