100 min | PG | June 14, 2024 | Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar
Riley hits puberty and new emotions move in. Anxiety takes over. Pixar remembers how to make adults cry in a children’s movie. The formula works because the feelings are real.
Riley is thirteen now. She is at hockey camp trying to impress the older players and make the varsity team. Puberty arrives and with it a demolition crew that tears apart the emotional headquarters Joy has carefully maintained. New emotions move in. Anxiety is the leader. Envy, Ennui, and Embarrassment follow. Anxiety does not want Riley to fail. She wants to protect her by controlling everything. The metaphor is clean and devastating. Anyone who has watched a child transform from confident kid to anxious teenager will recognize every beat.
Amy Poehler returns as Joy with the same relentless optimism now tinged with something sadder. Joy has spent years curating Riley’s sense of self and now watches it get dismantled. Maya Hawke voices Anxiety with manic energy that is both funny and painful. Anxiety is not a villain. She is a protector who cannot stop protecting. That distinction is the film’s smartest choice. Ayo Edebiri voices Envy with yearning. Adèle Exarchopoulos voices Ennui with magnificent French boredom. The ensemble of old and new emotions creates a workplace comedy inside a child’s head.
Kelsey Mann directs his first feature for Pixar with the confidence of someone who learned from the best. The animation is a technical leap. The new emotional landscapes are inventive. Anxiety’s influence manifests as orange tendrils that rewire Riley’s belief system. The sequence where Riley’s sense of self gets rebuilt from suppressed memories is visually stunning and emotionally brutal. The pacing is tight at a hundred minutes. Not a scene is wasted.
The original Inside Out was about a child learning that sadness is necessary. This sequel is about a teenager learning that anxiety is not who she is. The thesis is simple and profound and Pixar earns it through character rather than sentiment. Riley’s panic attack at the climax is one of the most honest depictions of adolescent anxiety in any film, animated or otherwise. Pixar has been inconsistent in recent years. This is the studio at full power.