Suitability for kids: Ages 6 and above.

Pixar has once again outdone itself with its latest release, Inside Out 2, a 2024 animated movie directed by Kelsey Mann. The movie is a sequel to Inside Out (2015), which was an instant hit.

THE NEW EMOTIONS
Inside Out 2 introduced a new set of emotions as Riley enters a crucial stage of her life (puberty), whose interests for Riley do not align with the original squad’s. Anxiety takes the lead, planning what she thinks is best for Riley’s future, and although she isn’t on the right track, that’s what the movie tries to convey – anxiety is an emotion that everyone experiences and when we do, it tends to steer our actions the wrong way and leads to negative consequences despite our best intentions. Anxiety realises in the end that she doesn’t have the right to solely decide what was good for Riley, similar to Joy’s arc in the first movie.

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CRITICISM DECONSTRUCTED
While the previous movie did an excellent job portraying the negative impact that being overly optimistic could have, Riley felt like a puppet being controlled by strings rather than her own person. While many critics do feel this way about the new movie, the storyline tries its best to balance Riley’s scenes as well as the emotions working through problems inside of her, making her seem like a full-fledged character. This change reflects how Pixar has taken into account the criticism it received from the first movie. In fact, the animation studio’s storyboarding process reveals that it incorporates constructive feedback from everyone in the team regardless of their position and develops their stories accordingly.

“Maybe that’s what happens when you grow up,
you feel less joy”

AN EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER
There are plenty of lines and scenes that touched our hearts, but this one conquers all for how hard hitting it is. The reason childhood memories are so precious to us is because of how joyful they are. But as we grow up, our lives demand us to be more serious. an interesting detail is that joy, the only positive emotion in the gang has a blue glow around her, the colour that represents sadness. While the audience was mentally prepared to become emotional in the theatre, Inside Out 2 left us all feeling more overwhelmed than we foresaw with the way it reminded us to be connected with our emotions.