Enjoying the freedoms afforded by not being limited to just an all-ages audience, Inside Out 2 works some fairly adult themes deep into the narrative. This does not however keep the boffins at Pixar from retaining the surface look and feel from being accessible to all. Their established essence is still readily apparent and the colour palette is vibrant to the extreme and the characters range from cute to assertive.
The story is based around a world where our basic emotions are personified by characters that excel in those emotions, so you have Sadness (voiced by Phyllis Smith), Fear (Tony Hale), Disgust (Liza Lapira), Anger (Lewis Black) and Joy (Amy Poehler) who has the hardest job of all reigning in all these potentially destructive emotions. Now it wouldn’t be a relevant story without the addition of some new emotions and characters that mirror our times.
Mirroring real life, anxiety (Maya Hawke) joins the party and really throws a monkey wrench into the proceedings as does embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser) envy (Ayo Edebiri) and last but certainly not least ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos). These new emotions add to the war raging inside young Riley Andersen’s (Kensington Tallman) head. Riley is at that stage in life where those emotions can develop their strongest grip, the early teen years.
Even though Riley comes from a stable loving family she still falls prey to those conflicting and contradictory emotions. The film’s journey is about her finding the strength to put those wildly ranging emotions in check. This is done with consummate filmmaking skill and falls right into Pixar’s wheelhouse of amazing visuals and strong storyline ethics. If only life’s hard lessons could be this much fun in real life.
Rob Hudson
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