I don’t remember when I started puberty or when I became aware that something was happening, but I distinctly remember a recurring fantasy throughout the process of wanting to condense six or seven years of hormonal, physical, and mental growth into one overnight metamorphosis. One horrific and terrible night where acne would be purged from every pore, the wild and uncontrollable emotions would bubble forth and then simmer down, and the bones would grow in double time so my joints could finally catch up and stop hurting me all the damn time. It would be awful, painful, and probably traumatic, no doubt, but it would also be over and done with.

That’s more or less what happens to Riley in Inside Out 2, though after seeing her going through it, maybe such a short period for all of that change isn’t a great idea.

With a screenplay by Dave Holstein and Meg LeFauve and directed by Kelsey Mann, Inside Out 2 picks up where Inside Out left off: Riley (voiced by Kensington Tallman) still lives in San Francisco with her two parents, still is a good daughter and friend, and still loves hockey. Inside the headquarters of her mind, Joy (Amy Poehler) still runs the show, though she’s gotten better at letting the other emotions—Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Liza Lapira), and Fear (Tony Hale)—have their turn at the helm. Joy, like Riley, is growing into a more complex emotion, but she’s still struggling with control. That’s a lot of stills; a lot of trying to maintain the status quo. And we haven’t even met Nostalgia (June Squibb), one of Riley’s many emotions in waiting. What a doozy that day will be.

Back to Joy: She just wants Riley to be happy. And if that means collecting a couple or several hundred less-than-pleasant memories and chucking them into the back of Riley’s mind, then so be it. All in service of making sure Riley believes that she is, deep down, a good person.

That mantra, “I’m a good person,” is a new wrinkle to the architecture of Riley’s mind. The various islands representing Riley’s personality are still present, but they take a backseat to a series of intertwining strands that create the echo of how Riley sees herself. With Joy at the helm, that white and radiant piece of sculpture reverberates with “I’m a good person.” And when it does, Riley gains strength and calm.

But there’s a catch, a hidden hollowness to “I’m a good person,” that Joy can’t quite hear, but I think Riley can. It’s the hollowness that comes when we have to tell ourselves something that should be a given. Instinct works because it relies on action, not conception. Reinforcement doesn’t because consciousness always makes room for doubt. If you’re a good person, you’re a good person. If you have to tell yourself that one time too many, you start to wonder if you aren’t. That’s what Riley is dealing with, and by the time she gets to the third act, her pristine identity of positivity will be replaced by another, this one jagged and frizzy, and carry a message of unrelenting hopelessness. Here, the echo of the mantra is so pronounced, so arresting, that it can stop the world from turning.

That nagging notion comes courtesy of Riley’s new emotions: Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), and Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser). They all play a role, but not nearly as big of one as Anxiety, who takes control of headquarters, boots out the core five emotions, and sends Riley into a tailspin as she tries to impress the older girls at a three-day hockey summer camp.

Thanks to her character design—more Muppet than the humanoid-looking Joy—and vocal performance from Hawke, Anxiety emerges as a fully formed character and the perfect foil for Joy. Much like Joy in Inside Out, Anxiety plays the overly concerned parent who just wants the best for Riley, even if that means ignoring what is best for Riley. Both Joy and Anxiety think they know, both take action, both want to suppress the other emotions complicating their goals, and both are terrified that what they’re doing will blow up in their face. Riley’s echoing mantra of “I’m a good person,” and the reverse—which I won’t spoil here because it’s such a sock to the gut—are the same mantras echoing within Joy and Anxiety.

So, is Inside Out 2 a continuation of Riley’s story or a retelling of Inside Out with new colors? It’s a little bit of both. Joy is once again sent on a journey through Riley’s mind in hopes of getting back to headquarters before things get out of hand. Sadness once again plays a pivotal role in accessing Riley’s emotional complexities. And the world of Riley’s mind is once again filled out with a magnificent array of visual puns: light bulbs are ideas, and a brainstorm is a typhoon of light bulbs; sarcasm, sar-chasm, creates an in untraversable barrier; and on and on and on. Oh, and since Riley is going through puberty, everything is a mess.

One of the hallmarks of a Pixar script is the feeling of pure imagination. Not the kind of imagination that breaks so many rules it takes time for the rest of the world to catch up, but the kind that makes you forget the underlying structure. Every beat in Inside Out stays one step ahead of the audience, which creates a kind of electricity that makes the story and world unfolding before you feel new and exciting and uncertain—even if the narrative plays out inside a highly conventional Hollywood structure. Comparatively, Inside Out 2 stays on beat. Things happen just when you think they will or want them to, and in some cases, you get the joke right before the character makes it.

That doesn’t detract from the overall experience of watching Inside Out 2—it’s quite strong and sure to linger—but will it stick to the ribs and conjure the same emotional swell the way Inside Out did nine years ago? Only time will tell. By then, we may have Inside Out 3 to discuss and a whole new host of emotions to meet: Nostalgia, Awe, Contempt, and the one emotion no one is excited to meet, Grief.

Inside Out 2 (2024)
Directed by Kelsey Mann
Screenplay by Dave Holstein, Meg LeFauve
Produced by Mark Nielsen
Voices: Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Tony Hale, Liza Lapira, Maya Hawke, Ayo Edebiri, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Paul Walter Hauser, Kensington Tallman
Walt Disney Pictures, Rated PG, Running time 96 minutes, Opens June 14, 2014

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