Inside Out 2 (PG, 96 minutes)
4 stars
Pixar is back with another must-see classic.
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While the animation studio might not have made as big of a splash in the past few years as it had previously - Elemental didn't get nearly as much recognition in the pop cultural landscape as it should have, and Lightyear and Turning Red were barely a blip on the radar - Inside Out 2 looks set to bring the Disney arm back on track.
The sequel catches back up with Riley's emotions a couple of years on from where we left her, having just moved to San Francisco. Riley is now a teenager and hitting puberty, which means things are getting chaotic in the emotion station.
Just as Fear, Disgust, Anger and Sadness arrived after Joy as Riley was growing up, there's several new emotions joining the gang for this messy, confusing period of Riley's life.
There's Anxiety (Stranger Things' Maya Hawke delivering an excellent, vocal fry-laden performance), Envy (The Bear's Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (who doesn't really speak, he's too embarrassed), and Ennui (French actress Adèle Exarchopoulos), and they all have one job - to make sure Riley doesn't become a social outcast at high school.
These emotions arrive just as Riley is about to attend hockey camp ahead of her first year of high school. She's away from her parents for a few days and trying to impress the coach and captain of the high school ice hockey team, and Anxiety is hard at work predicting all the ways she could stuff up and make a fool of herself.
Aside from being fun, well-designed new characters, the adolescent emotions are all too relatable for audiences who have already gone through their teenage years.
The constant desire to be perceived as cool, to try on new personalities that you believe will make you fit in more, to eschew anything deemed lame or uncool even if you really like it - it's all brought to life with tenderness and truth in this sequel.
Where the first film showed that life can't always be about the happy moments, and it's the mix of emotions that make the good memories worth it, this film shows that you can't always trust that what your emotions are telling you is the reality of the situation.
All Anxiety wants to do is make sure Riley has a good high school experience, but her methods shake the teen's Sense of Self - a new, and beautifully constructed, concept introduced in this film.
It's impossible, even as a fully grown adult, not to be moved by the sophisticated simplicity of the storytelling. The filmmakers - including writer/director Kelsey Mann and co-writers Dave Holstein and Meg LeFauve - have managed to distill the internal chaos and confusion of the teenage experience into a story that's not only entertaining and adventurous for younger audiences, but also insightful, relatable and truthful for older viewers.
There are a few scenes in particular - Riley dealing with an anxiety attack being the most notable - where having a view of what the emotions are doing inside and how that plays out in Riley's life are so well executed it feels like this film should be played in some sort of emotional intelligence seminar.
There are plenty of callbacks to the first film which will delight fans, from the lovely theme music - now given an angsty upgrade with electric guitars and drums - to repeated gags, but Inside Out 2 could still easily stand on its own for those who haven't seen its predecessor.
Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith and Lewis Black return as Joy, Sadness and Anger, but Mindy Kaling and Bill Hader are replaced by Liza Lapira and Tony Hale as Disgust and Fear, respectively.
Diane Lane, Flea, June Squibb, Kyle MacLachlan and Yvette Nicole Brown are also members of the voice cast.