The Turbulent World of Adolescence: ‘Inside Out 2’ Review

Tempting as it is to consider any revisiting of ‘Inside Out’ as sacrilegious, its sequel is deftly sensitive to one of the most complicated and awkward chapters of life.

The emotional rollercoaster of adolescence

In the nine years since ‘Inside Out,’ Riley, the young girl with a head full of emotions, has grown up a little. Or maybe a lot. She’s now 13, and her internal landscape is shifting. The old gang of Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger are roused from their beds by a soft beep, like a fire alarm in need of a new battery, but soon it’s sounding an all-out emergency. On their console, a red light blinks. ‘What’s that?’ one says. ‘Puberty,’ the button reads.

‘Inside Out 2’ turns out to be not just a modest, inch-things-along sequel but a follow-up of cataclysmic proportions.

The filmmakers of ‘Inside Out 2’ have managed again to filter complex psychological developments into a bright, entertaining head trip that in its finest moments packs an emotional wallop.

Riley’s emotional landscape is shifting

I would peg Joy as the real protagonist of the first ‘Inside Out.’ That movie, really, hinged on the blue-haired sprite’s desperate race to preserve all the happiness of childhood. Aided especially by Poehler’s brilliant voice work, Joy — a kind of stand-in for parents wanting only the best for their kids — was less just another emotion than an unflagging guardian learning that sometimes letting go is best.

This time, Riley feels more the main character, though Anxiety, an excitable, orange, bug-eyed Muppet-like thing, is increasingly calling the shots. Riley (voiced by Kensington Tallman) is now taller, has a few good friends, and is still playing hockey. Her internal landscape is shifting, too. Boy Band Island is done, for one. And out of her pools of memories, new strands are growing a tree-shaped Belief System. Just who Riley is, at her core, gets tested and reshaped in ‘Inside Out 2.’

Anxiety takes over

The care is taken here to illustrate how new impulses can run roughshod over a young person and throw their internal compass out of whack. Confronting the struggles and realities of anxiety, particularly for teenage girls, could hardly be a more laudable undertaking.

Pixar’s magic

Pixar, like other studios wrestling with a new media landscape, has dabbled in recent years with more short-form and digital-friendly content. But Docter has steered Pixar back to focusing on feature films with robust theatrical releases. (‘Inside Out 2’ is to exclusively play for 100 days in theaters.) So in more ways than one, Mann’s movie feels like a much-needed feature-length refuge from today’s anxiety-producing devices. Unlike many of Pixar’s moving metaphors of parenthood, this one is, affectingly, for the kids.

A much-needed refuge