I had seen the original Inside Out film when it was released in 2015 and have used the messages contained within in therapy sessions with clients young and old, to explain how emotions work and the ways they impact our interactions with those around us. Those brilliant story writers, illustrators, animators, actors and consultants created a masterpiece back then. No less so with the release of Inside Out 2.
When we meet Riley in the first film, she is 10 years old and newly relocated from Minnesota to California which might as well have been another planet. In her home state, she enjoyed outdoor sports including skating and ice hockey. In her new home, she is in a city with far less nature to appreciate. Because her father’s job had the family relocating, she had to leave behind her friends, school and familiar places. She is not a happy camper. Because her parents viewed her as being perpetually joyful, and she didn’t want to disappoint them, she held back other feelings. Say hello to Joy, Anger, Sadness, Disgust, and Fear, personified by little critters in her mind. They hang out in headquarters and work the control board. What’s really cool is that we get to see the same miniscule beings representing big feelings in the brains of everyone in Riley’s life. Eventually, she gets real and tells her parents how she feels and a greater understanding of each other ensues. They find a hockey team for her to join.
In the new movie, Riley has just turned 13 and, uh oh, puberty arrives with its hormonal surges, mood shifts, braces, a zit on her chin, awkwardness, uncertainty about how to fit in, in a world that is constantly shifting. She finds that her two best friends, Grace and Bree, also hockey players, will be going to a different high school. Trying to adjust to her new reality, we are introduced to raring to go emotions of Envy, Embarrassment, Ennui (defined as boredom and listlessness. Cue lots of sighing.) and the star of the show, Anxiety, who shows up carrying a ton of baggage.
All of these new emotions accompany her as she navigates hockey camp, shifting alliances as she has a girl crush on an older superstar hockey player named Val who takes Riley under her wing, an evolving sense of self in which her belief in herself as a good person crashes into her desire to be liked at almost all costs. Anxiety, in its attempt to plan for every eventuality, drives the other feelings into doing their level best to keep it under wraps before it sabotages her friendships and her place on a hockey team for which she is trying out.
As a therapist, what I particularly appreciated was how spot on the consultants got the interactive nature of the parade of feelings. NPR interviewed Clinical psychologist and Inside Out 2 consultant Lisa Damour as she expressed, “As psychologists, we see anxiety as an important, valuable protective and natural human emotion,” she says. “We only see anxiety as pathological if it’s, you know, anticipating threats that aren’t real or overreacting to potential problems.”
Note the word plays embedded in the film as metaphors run rampant. Watch out for the ‘sar-chasm’ and be sure not to ‘bottle up’ your emotions.
If you want to laugh, cry, reminisce, and observe, as Riley learns to ride the waves of puberty, go see this film! Kids will get the physical humor (there was a family with two children behind us, adding their commentary.) and adults, the subtle nuances.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
