Inside Out 2 is the latest annual feature effort by Pixar Animation Studios and is the long-overdue sequel to the brilliant original film Inside Out from 2015. Like the original film, the sequel features personified emotions like Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust administering a young girl’s thoughts and actions in her mind.

Set a year after the events of the first film, Inside Out 2 follows the original core emotions as they navigate the troubled waters of puberty. Riley (Kensington Tallman) turns 13 and is about to enter high school. On the eve of leaving for hockey camp with her friends, the “Puberty” alarm goes off in the console room of the mind, leaving Joy (Amy Poehler) and the other core emotions scrambling. Soon, new emotions arrive, led by an erratic Anxiety (Maya Hawke). Among them are a wide-eyed Envy (Ayo Edebiri), a huge Embarassment (Paul Walter Hauser), and Ennui, or boredom, (Adèle Exarchopoulos) who slouches on a couch constantly.

Choosing between spending time with Riley’s best friends, who are going to a different high school next year, and impressing new acquaintances that will help boost Riley’s profile in high school but risk fracturing existing friendships, Joy and Anxiety clash on their methods, each believing their respective way is best for Riley. Overpowered by the new emotions, the core emotions are “bottled up” and sent into the vault, with Riley’s existing Sense of Self discarded in place of a new one administered by Anxiety. Determined to restore Riley’s Sense of Self and stop Anxiety from taking over and harming Riley, Joy and the gang go on a trip to the Back of the Mind, navigating through terrains like the Sar-chasm and the Stream of Consciousness.

Inside Out 2 is a marvellous sequel to the brilliant original. The film explores more complex emotions and scenarios as Riley steps into early adolescence. Following the tried-and-tested formula of the original, the sequel features a quest in the mind with a group of emotions as other emotions go rogue in the mind console, tempting Riley to make questionable decisions. With three threads going on simultaneously, the film constantly jumps back and forth between them. Directed by first-time director Kelsey Mann, the film is surprisingly coherent and well-paced despite the added complexities of more sophisticated emotions like anxiety and the more expansive set of characters. The parallel of Anxiety in this film and Joy in the previous, where each strives to take control of Riley while dismissing other emotions, is clear, and the film builds on the symmetry throughout by highlighting the duality of Joy and Anxiety, confidence and self-doubt.

One of the main reasons I adored Inside Out is the brilliance and simplicity of its metaphors and personifications of psychological concepts. My favourite is Anger disrupting the Train of Thought. This is, however, slightly lacking in the sequel. There are puns à gogo, like Sar-chasm and Brain-Storm, but most of their representations do not translate brilliantly to real concepts. On the other hand, I do love the character designs for the new emotions. Anxiety has frazzled hair; Envy has a short stature as jealousy makes you feel small; Embarrassment looks like a giant as shame makes you feel like all the attention is on you.

The animation is splendid, and I particularly love the whirlwind of Anxiety as she takes over everything. There is also an embrace of different animation styles in this film with some of the minor characters, reminding me of Across the Spider-Verse, which I very much enjoyed. The voice acting in this film is lovely as well. The standout for me is Maya Hawke as Anxiety. Her slightly hoarse voice creates a striking contrast to Amy Poehler’s upbeat, chiming tone for Joy, and the delivery of her lines is frantic yet never became incessant, riding the fine line between portraying anxiety and causing anxiety in the audience.

As for the score, I was initially disappointed to learn that Michael Giacchino was not scoring the sequel. However, Andrea Datzman’s rendition of Giacchino’s themes and her original themes in the sequel proves equal to the challenge. The film starts with Giacchino’s theme, nostalgic and heartwarming. This very quickly escalates to a rock rendition of the theme, blended with new motifs by Datzman. This pattern arises a few times with other original themes, which in my opinion is brilliant as it mirrors what happens with the characters in the film.

All in all, Inside Out 2 is a long-overdue sequel, and I am glad that it now exists. While not as creatively brilliant and effective in its metaphors as the original, the sequel is better paced, more coherent, and more ambitious. It is a marvellous addition to the Pixar canon, and I hope they keep making more of these, wherever this might take the characters.

Author: Chia Jing Heng (andreusjh99)