Brainy coming-of-age sequel lacks emotional connection

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This article was published 15/06/2024 (828 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

With the release of recent commercial and critical duds like Lightyear and Elemental, there’s been talk of a Pixar slump.

Charming and cheerful but unnecessarily complicated, Inside Out 2 isn’t slumpy, exactly. This animated family-friendly sequel is consistently entertaining, and it delivers an important and empathetic message, but it’s still a drop-off from the 2015 original.

The story is packed with emotions, and we mean literally. Inside Riley (Kensington Tallman), a kind, competent, confident gal who lives with her mom and dad in San Francisco, we once again find the OG feelings of Fear (Tony Hale), Disgust (Liza Lapira), Anger (Lewis Black), Sadness (Phyllis Smith) and especially Joy (Amy Poehler).

But as Riley turns 13, a flashing red Puberty Alarm goes off in the middle of the night, followed by the arrival of some new recruits to the emotional team: Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos) and, especially, Anxiety (Maya Hawke), who is frazzly and orange and just busting with worst-possible-outcome scenarios for any given situation.

In the outside world, Riley is heading to a hockey camp she’s decided will either make or break her social status, definitely for high school and possibly for the rest of her life.

Riley ends up freezing out her loyal middle-school BFFs, Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green) and Grace (Grace Lu), in an attempt to get in with an older group led by super-cool team captain Valentina (Lilimar).

Perky Joy tries to wrangle her co-workers into doing what’s best for Riley, but she’s increasingly being edged out by Anxiety, and she’s finding her well-intentioned advice for her new colleague — “Hey, don’t worry so much” — doesn’t actually work.

Things are so fraught even the normally sunny Joy resorts to swearing (if “jiminy mother-loving toaster strudel” can be called swearing).

Kudos to helmer Kelsey Mann, making her feature directorial debut, and scripters Meg LeFauve (who worked on the original Inside Out) and Dave Holstein for researching the sociology and psychology of adolescent interactions and the science of emotions. Way to go for trying to develop a coherent theory of the mind and for suggesting how feelings, memories and belief structures combine to create a sense of self.

The movie deals, seriously, with suppressed emotions, tamped-down memories and the pressures facing adolescent girls. There is, at one key point, a realistic depiction of a panic attack.

Still, this didactic structure, as informative as it is, kind of clogs up the storytelling. LeFauve and Holstein struggle to connect the internal story of the emotional crew, which is essentially a workplace comedy, with Riley’s external narrative, which is basically a dramatic coming-of-age tale.

As with most Pixar projects, there’s bright, often inventive animation and strong vocal work. In some ways, the sequel’s add-ons work well.

Ennui, portrayed as a French girl dripping with sarcasm, boredom and adolescent world-weariness, is a comic highlight (though she’d probably roll her eyes at this descriptor). Embarrassment is just a doll — a huge pink-hued guy who retreats into his hoodie at the slightest sense of awkwardness. There’s some freewheeling fun with Riley’s discarded childhood memories, including an adorably handsome but humourless video-game character (Yong Yea).

But as Riley’s mental superstructure gets increasingly complicated, the movie gets so wrapped up in explanations it loses sight of its core emotional message. As we often see with sequels, sometimes more ends up feeling like less.

alison.gillmor@winnipegfreepress.com