thoughts about life

A Brief Review of Inside Out 2

On the space between kids' movies and the human condition.

This article contains minor spoilers for Inside Out 2. Watch it sometime, if you haven’t. It’s a nice movie.

INSIDE OUT 2 IS, by some accounts, a quintessential children’s film. After all, the protagonist is young—just at the beginning of their teenage years—and the work’s central whimsy is bright and colourful, carrying over the delightful (if a bit on-the-nose) cast of the original movie while sprinkling in a variety of new and interesting emotions. Furthermore, the dialogue itself has that well-crafted directedness that typically targets the younger demographic. And, of course, the film itself is intrinsically defined by its absurd yet enlightening premises of literalisation and metaphor—that heavy-handed yet charming use of personification that underlies the fundamental concept of Inside Out.

And yet, however, there are many elements of Inside Out’s sequel that disturb it from its comfortable rest atop the “kids’ movie” hill. For one, the main character, Riley, has evidently grown since Pixar's previous instalment. Additionally, the choices for the new emotions—Embarrassment, Ennui (Boredom), Envy, and the star of the show, Anxiety—are of much more nuance and complexity than the traditional quintet of Joy, Anger, Fear, Disgust, and Sadness. The plot’s core themes, too, lean further towards broader questions—questions of fitting in, social isolation, growing up, and coming of age.

Of course, there is also the fact that Inside Out’s original audience has also aged in the near decade it has taken for the sequel to release. Those who were once children are now teenagers. Those who were teens now adults, and so on. Thus, it is natural that Inside Out 2 would also begin to shift in its perspective—taking on a newer role as, if not a fully matured movie, then at least what one might consider a teenage movie.

AROUND A SIMILAR TIME LAST YEAR, away from the scorching heat of the dry summer afternoon and within the cosy comfort of a dark suburban cinema, I had gone to watch the great animation masterpiece that was Sony’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. It was my first time back at the cinema since the start of the pandemic, and the audiovisual mix of revolutionary mixed 3D animation, comic book aesthetics, and booming sound design had completely drawn me in. Though Spider-Verse’s story was certainly enthralling, there was similarly as much, if not more joy, for me to be found in the impeccable and painstaking animation that it was told through. Spider-Verse embodied a new pinnacle of technique. In a sense, it was art for art’s sake.

This year with Inside Out 2, there was less of the technique and more of the story. Perhaps it is natural that a film about emotions would appeal more to the narrative, or perhaps it is unfair to compare Sony’s work with Pixar’s (given their distinctive styles), but that is not to say that Inside Out 2 was not “technically impressive.” Pixar, in their many years of computer animation, has mastered that look that is composed of cartoony characters in partially realistic worlds, all rendered with bombastic colour and lighting complete with a mix of stylised and photorealistic materials. There are many times in the theatre where I noticed the grandiose use of colour or rim lighting, the artist’s careful attention paid to textured embellishments on the rink walls or the emissive glow of the memory tendrils. There is no fault in Inside Out 2’s visual direction—it is perfectly satisfactory for a Pixar movie. Similarly, the sound design has no faults either. In fact, the opening and closing hockey sequences nail the satisfaction of audio and video working together in perfect harmony—beat-wise, pacing-wise, and vibe-wise.

BUT, of course, to return to the core of Inside Out 2, its story is so tight and well-written to an absurd point that there are barely any elements introduced which are extraneous in their existence. The many moving parts fit together airtight, foreshadowing around every corner and practically every object a Chekhov’s gun, waiting to be fired at just the right moment. All in all, though, Inside Out 2 is funny. It’s emotional, it’s impactful, and it’s just an overall wonderful experience. And at its centre, at its true centre, is a story that is at once simple and playful while also being universal and deeply relatable—at least to some.

I suppose to conclude, there is no better subject to talk about than the film’s central antagonist—Anxiety. Anxiety, among a cast of new emotions that join Riley’s original five after she reaches puberty, is portrayed as a well-meaning soul. It is Anxiety that supposedly helps Riley plan for the future—for the things she should fear but “can’t see.” And yet, as the film progresses, it is this incessant struggle for control—for success—that leads Anxiety towards a rift among the many emotions and a disturbance in Riley’s core sense of self. It is thus that Anxiety builds a new foundation for Riley based on fragile circumstances. Perhaps it is summed up best in that line which represents that new sense of self: “I’m not good enough.”

And yet, for a movie like Inside Out 2, it would have been easy for the writers to conclude with a message of Joy overcoming Anxiety—that optimism and pure unadulterated happiness is the solution to all of life’s problems. That is not what they choose. Instead, Inside Out 2 concludes with a parallel between Riley’s hockey team and her many emotions. It is not the absoluteness of one emotion or the other that defines a worthwhile life—even if that emotion is pure bliss. Rather, it is all the different emotions and memories of ours, working in harmony, that melds together our true sense of self and makes us genuine. Makes us human.

Perhaps you can relate to the themes put forth in Inside Out 2. Maybe you don’t. But either way, it can be said that Inside Out 2 is a movie that is certainly something more than a kids’ movie. It’s a movie for kids, but it’s also a movie for us—the people that have grown up, or are still growing up. In a sense, it’s a movie for both the inner kids we still are, and the grown ups, teenagers, and adults we pretend to be. As Jill Bolte Taylor once stated, “Most of us think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, but we are actually feeling creatures that think.” That, I suppose, is what Inside Out 2 offers—in both a textual and metatextual sense. In that way, it can be said certainly that Inside Out 2 is more than just a kids’ movie.

Maybe it’s just for me, or maybe we just live in a particularly anxious time, but Inside Out 2 offers the respite of recognition. Of seeing a concrete representation of the abstract notion of how it feels to live in our time.

     Or maybe it’s just fun to personify your emotions. After all, there’s something charming about doing just that.