Published At 2025.02.28
Movie
An animation that conveys sympathy and consolation
Inside Out 2
By I-re Kim
2024-11-11
The Inside Out movie series is a representative work of Disney and Pixar, both masters of animation. The sequel is back after a nine-year gap since the release of the original film. Inside Out 2, which was recently released, became the world’s most popular animation of all time. The movies in this series have originality because they convert the emotions of people into characters. Characters of emotions help audiences to understand the change of emotions in the growth process of the main character Riley. Additionally, they significantly contribute to touching people’s hearts. People who watched the first and second films express positive responses like "Time to look back on my emotions and myself" and "All emotions are sympathetic and understood". It’s essential to explore this successful animation from a fresh perspective. The second film starts with a ‘puberty’ alarm at the emotion headquarters of Riley one peaceful day. Riley becomes 13 years old and reaches adolescence, and new emotions such as Anxiety, Embarrassment, Envy, Ennui appear at the emotion headquarters. Among them, Anxiety doesn't like a headquarters operating system of original emotions, eventually she kicks the original five emotions out and starts to control Riley by only her method. After that Riley feels pressure by thinking worried states in a new environment that Anxiety made. Riley suffers from an identity crisis because of Anxiety’s negative operating system for headquarters. And the original five emotions start a dangerous adventure to go back to headquarters and to find out Riley’s happiness. Inside Out 2 was made by a different director from the first movie. Kelsey Mann, a director of 2, said that he researched the changes in the brains of teenagers for directing the movie. According to him, he finally had an idea that the story begins as the workers break down the emotion headquarters because of puberty. In the process of making the movie, he drew Riley’s inner part by consulting psychology experts and tried to enhance details by referring to his daughters whose ages are 15 and 16. Kelsey Mann chose ‘anxiety’ to a main emotion among the emotions that appear in adolescence. Because he thought that anxiety is a representative emotion people face steadily from adolescence, it can draw sympathy from many people. He said that he expects audiences to talk to each other about complex emotions like pleasure and anxiety after watching the movie. The reason why this movie can be successful is it conveys sympathy and consolation to people. The growth process of Riley as she overcomes confusing emotions in puberty and eventually establishes her ego would let people who already become an adult get enlightenment and be moved. This movie urges us to look at the emotion of anxiety in a more sympathetic light. It teaches that we have to entirely embrace even emotions that we usually consider negative and try to suppress as our own. After watching this movie, people can realize that there are no useless emotions and get consolation to their heart. The movie Inside Out 2 emphasizes the importance of complex emotions and the harmony of all emotions with the feeling of ‘anxiety’ at the center. People who watched this movie come to realize the role of anxiety among various emotions. Also, they would come to understand and embrace their anxiety. The Inside Out series focuses on ‘sadness’ in the first film and ‘anxiety’ in the second. This conveys the message that we can grow into a better ‘we’ when we fully accept these emotions. This movie deserves to be reviewed again as it is not just an animation about the adventure of cute characters, but a movie that resonates deeply with audiences, especially adults.