Inside Out 2 (2024)

Yet another mental health movie from the Pixar oeuvre, featuring emotions and how to manage them. Joy is on top as the emotion bundle goes, and she believes she has perfected an unimpeachable system for molding Riley. With the help of the usual crew—Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust—she deposits the glass balls holding Riley’s worst memories to a distant realm called the ‘back of the mind’, which is an age old strategy for getting by. Those of use who are from New England are very familiar with it. She deposits the best moments to an underground lake whose tendrils form a forest that reaches from the glimmering waters toward the sky, forming Riley’s core beliefs. “I am a good person,” the girl often repeats to herself. You can’t really argue with Joy’s methods. Riley, now 13 years old, is giving, smart, and, by Joy’s own account, exceptional. The girl who once feared loneliness in her new Bay Area surroundings has a tight-knit friend group too. The trio are so close that they’ve formed a formidable team on their hockey squad. They’ve even caught the eye of a high school hockey coach who has invited them to a three-day camp where players like Val-—Riley’s hero-—attend. For Joy and her cohorts, you can’t ask for much more. Along comes the biggest, most obvious obstacle possible at the teenager Riley: Puberty. A late-night alarm, in fact, announces its beginning, leading to some additional emotions appearing: Embarrassment, Ennu, Envy, and the most destructuve emotion of all, Anxiety. When Riley learns her best friends will be attending a different high school next year, Anxiety takes it upon herself to wholly recraft Riley in the hopes that new version of her will impress Val. She throws away Riley’s present sense of self to the back of her mind and exiles Joy and the other old emotions. It’s up to Joy and company to restore Riley’s former sense, journeying to the back of the mind, before Anxiety totally upends Riley’s ability to function.