‘Inside Out 2’ Review: New Core Memory Unlocked

Released in 2015, Pixar’s Inside Out quickly cemented itself as one of the studio’s best animated films, combining superb animation with a charming and heartwarming story that centered around our feelings and mental health. Not only did it help kids to better express their feelings, the film also gave adults a platform to discuss mental health. Pixar has often struggled with sequels, and considering how perfect the original Inside Out is, any follow up would be facing a massive uphill battle. Nearly a decade later and Inside Out 2 has finally arrived, and it is one of the best sequels Pixar has done. Anxiety and the other new emotions bring a whole new level of complexity to Riley that hits you in the heart. The original may still reign king, but Inside Out 2 is not far behind as it unlocks a new core memory.

As a 13-year-old Riley prepares to venture into high school, she and her two friends are invited to a hockey camp hosted by the school’s team, the Fire Hawks. Her emotions Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust have all been doing a great job at keeping everything in check and have even expanded her mind to include beliefs that make up Riley’s Sense of Self. All is going well until puberty hits and suddenly there are a slew of new and complex emotions. As Riley struggles to deal with her newfound feelings, Anxiety takes over control, pushing Joy and the rest of her old emotions to the back of her mind where everything is ignored. Joy and the others must find their way back to the center of Riley’s mind and learn how to deal with these out of control emotions before Anxiety takes over and changes Riley’s entire character, possibly for the worst.

Just as Riley has grown, so have her emotions. Inside Out 2 is deeper and more complex than its predecessor with Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui taking over Riley’s mind and pushing all the other, more simple emotions aside. Like before, the plot and world within Riley’s mind is brilliantly designed to explore the complexities of dealing with these emotions in a more simplistic manner. Anxiety by itself can be a difficult thing to explain to a teenager, but director Kelsey Mann delivers compelling and easy to understand scenes that literally show what is going on inside a person’s head whenever one of these emotions takes over.

Anxiety, voiced perfectly by Maya Hawke, is a frantic little fuzzball who thrives within the chaos of imaginary scenarios. There’s a scene where she enlists the workers of Riley’s mind to draw up any and all potential results of an action. Of course Anxiety only focuses on the bad drawings and ignores everything else, even when Joy tries to fix things by showing happy outcomes. As someone who deals with anxiety myself, it was an all too familiar scene that has played out time and time again inside my own mind.

And that is why Inside Out 2 excels just as much as the original. I connected with scene after scene as they dove deep into Riley’s mind. The animation style is gorgeous and there is often a humorous overtone with everything – this is a Pixar film afterall – but at the core of every scene is a colorful spherical ball of truth. The film captures feelings and emotions so beautifully, showing on screen how I’ve felt countless times before. Like a therapy session, Inside Out 2 shows that it’s okay to feel your feelings.

Inside Out was something quite magical, and I think it’s impossible for any sequel to capture the novelty and brilliance of the original. Inside Out 2 comes awfully close, however. The addition of more emotions and a broader mindscape for them to play in expands the franchise in meaningful and emotionally intelligent directions. Like Riley, the story has grown and evolved in complexity while still retaining a playfulness at its heart. Inside Out 2 is everything I want out of a sequel, and Pixar knocks it out of the park. You’ll run the whole gamut of emotions as it forms a new core memory deep inside your mind. Best of all, you’ll come out of the theater with a better understanding of yourself as well. Pixar’s latest is one big validating hug, plain and simple.