“Inside Out” is a film that had the ability to allow critics and the public to come to an agreement in terms of its great execution for children learning to manage their emotions in more challenging ways. In the recently released sequel Riley is no longer in middle school, but on her way to high school and with that big changes physically and emotionally like new emotions joining Joy, Anger, Sadness, Fear, and Disgust. This new batch of emotions embarrassment, ennui, envy, and the new leader anxiety come barging in.
To note before these emotions show up there is progress being shown by the original five who have created Riley’s sense of self connected with her stream of consciousness. With the first film being a success of showcasing the beginning steps of emotional intelligence it brought many people like myself to tears of learning that being sad can be okay and not something to shy away from. “Inside Out 2” takes us and Riley on a new journey that is important to test on as you get older.
The duration of this film takes over about 3-4 days during Riley’s hockey camp where she is actively socializing with her peers. Unfortunately these new and more profound emotions, more particularly anxiety and envy, are so driven to protect Riley with her social life and future in mind. They banish the original emotions from headquarters to the back of Riley’s mind to be forgotten. For many this is a realistic experience where at one point all you feel is panic and not enough of everything else especially joy.
Throughout the majority of Riley’s stay at the cam the main emotions were gone leaving the others in charge causing her to have a new sense of self being built. Anxiety being the ring leader and envy following behind showed as a different person and her own friends to distance themselves from her. With the plot for Riley at camp, anxiety taking over, and the other finding Riley’s old sense of self it all plays hand-in-hand.
I believe the biggest take away from this film is how they simply handle anxiety the emotion. In order to save Riley and get her self-esteem back up they risk sending all the bad memories with them back to the stream or consciousness in order to regain her real self. With context, in beginning of the movie the original emotions removed what they deemed irrelevant or too negative for their Riley in order to create that first sense of self.
While Anxiety’s actions get her to be disliked by her best friends and new friends she has to be in the Penalty box making anxiety panicked even more leading riley to feel horrible about herself and everything else. Once the bad memories are regained in consciousness this causes Riley to have her first anxiety attack. After some discussion Joy and Anxiety realize their position in Riley’s life and that they cannot determine who Riley is allowing her to make that decision itself and to learn from her own mistakes.
As this new sense of self develops Riley reconciles with everyone she hurt in the past few days. I had anticipated to see what emotional battles will be fought and I wasn’t let down, if anything I appreciated how they handled the anxiety attack. We got to see complexity in Riley and the other emotions like Joy allowing her to admit that she is aware she is delusional to remain happy in difficult times.
What Pixar and Disney did with these movies were phenomenal at not shying away and being a great way of teaching children what it is like to grow up and that what they go through isn’t an individual issue. I would rather say it definitely is up to par for adults as well given the amount of emotional maturity that goes on. The efforts to show how vast life can be the older you get and not being afraid to teach vulnerability will be greatly admired and will definitely be a stepping stone for film making in the future.
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