Inside Out 2 Reflection & Review

Inside Out made its way to my heart the first time I watched it. Here was a visual for feelings that I could use seamlessly with my clients. They took to it well. Meanwhile, I had an outlet to better understand my own feelings and the way that emotions interact with one another.

For quite some time, I imagined my primary emotion to be Joy, the grateful, in the moment emotion pursuing the most fun and optimism. However, I found over time that my primary emotion is Sadness, the emotionally intelligent, understanding, and empathetic emotion that can be easily reduced to being negative, complaining, or scared.

Inside Out 2 became more nuanced, introducing five new emotions — Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, Ennui, and Nostalgia. Anxiety makes it clear from the beginning that her intention is to protect and help Riley. Her forward thinking is admirable although at odds with the more in the moment emotions of Joy and Anger. Her presentation is layered as controlling to the point of being off-putting, willing to put other emotions as far away from the control center as she can. Envy is focused on being liked by others, key to Riley’s current stage of development as a teenager. Embarrassment represents the new self-monitoring Riley does to fit in. Ennui plays a cool, offering apathetic and neutral responses. Nostalgia tries to stick around but the group of emotions make it clear that Riley doesn’t have a need for nostalgia yet.

Moments that become key for Riley as the movie progresses are shaded in orange, Anxiety’s color. These moments initially are primarily positive in which Riley begins to put pieces in place to make friends and become better at hockey. However, too much influence from Anxiety leads to a changing of belief systems, that making the hockey team is the only way for her to make friends. To not make the hockey team could mean social doom, and ultimately, dying alone.

Inside Out 2 takes on the influence of feelings and experiences on beliefs. Compartmentalizing experiences to the back of the mind became common, however, the emergence of puberty and high stress led to the need to integrate these many experiences into a self-image not built on purely positive moments or anxious-driven pursuits, but rather on a complete image of Riley. Riley begins to believe seemingly contradictory messages of herself.

Imagination and anxiety are portrayed as being of the same token. The room used for dreams is used as a way to consider negative consequences and problem solve. Joy demonstrates that rallying the imagination group and the other emotions to think more optimistically can have an impact on feeling calm.

My first impression on the movie - I loved it. I started tearing up from the opening music reminiscent of the original with the care taken for a good sequel. The new emotions introduced felt appropriate, not simply a new storyline tacked on as a cash grab. Riley’s story is captivating and relatable enough without being so complex that a child could enjoy the movie but an adult could springboard from the story to meaning making and application.

Anxiety’s portrayal in my own experience felt spot-on. I’ve learned to see anxiety in my own life as a protector, a foolish and incorrect one at times, but a voice of reason at others. Anxiety doesn’t belong running the control panel - anxiety needs a balanced team and a place to cool off.

The belief system also felt accurate. Oftentimes we try to control how we look at ourselves, either by shoving the most positive or most negative beliefs in place. However, we can’t simply take all good or all bad, regardless of our dispositions or what we’ve been told about ourselves. A message that frequently seems to come up in media, Netflix series like Bojack Horseman for example, is that people are not simply good or bad. We may feel this pressure to act like Puritans, or hold the belief that a few bad decisions might get us canceled or seen as a villain regardless of our positive qualities or attempts to make amends. We are frequently changing and adapting in how we respond to the world around us. Even when we try to stay the same, we still change, or the seedlings of change are planted that we tend to if we wish. It can’t be helped. Change isn’t always a conscious choice.

In other words, as the movie portrays, our emotions and belief systems are not as controlled as maybe we would like to think. Joy and Anxiety couldn’t make Riley believe certain things about herself. We can focus on the more positive aspects of ourselves if we like. We can try to garner a certain emotional response. Yet some of this, maybe even the majority of this, comes down to choices. And those choices often link to some part of our belief system. Love is a choice. We may be overcome with sadness, anxiety, or fear, but to share love with those we care about is ultimately a choice.

We don’t live in a world of sitcom shows where the family is happy and the issue is completely resolved in 22 to 26 minutes. We also don’t live in a world where bad things happen and that’s the end of the story.

For what I may not have liked about the movie or feel the movie could have expanded on. While the “Stream of Consciousness” was featured briefly, thoughts are barely mentioned throughout the movie. They are seen as a backdrop of feelings or beliefs but not as their own entities in a meaningful way. This makes sense logistically and could be its own movie with characters for “all or nothing thinking” or “catastrophizing”.

Meanwhile, the vault was a good representation of what we put away, but so was the back of the mind, and I’m unsure what the difference would be. Perhaps it’s the difference between suppressed versus repressed experiences, but this was not well explained. The vault scene, while funny, felt out of place. It did make clear that the brain was in a way policing many of the primary emotions to offer Anxiety more of a platform. However, this didn’t seem necessary and offers more ambiguity and confusion about what experiences and memories are forgotten, pushed away, or deemed dangerous.

I also think a storyline where Fear is drawn to Anxiety’s side and becomes a villain could have been a valid direction for the movie. In fact, I think fear, the emotion, gets a lot less slack from society as an emotion and Fear as a character is endearing. Yet fear and anxiety go hand-in-hand. The absence of fear from the control panel also creates confusion in the narrative. So is Anxiety an evolved version of Fear? Is Anxiety actually a thought process and not an emotion? Can the emotions be portrayed even when they are not at the control center? Riley was clearly happy to be with her friends yet Joy was absent. The movie has some plot holes if I was to be nit picky.

A potential sequel for Inside Out 3 could be to follow Riley as a young adult trying to find her self-image. How does she use these new belief systems? How does she balance her feelings that may hold less importance to beliefs, responsibilities, and commitments? What does Riley do that may make Joy, Anxiety, or Sadness more prominent? How much participation do the feelings have in controlling Riley’s emotions as a young adult, and how much of this is linked to her past experiences?

Overall, I want to further reflect on the applications of Inside Out 2 and hopefully bring some of those insights and examples to conversations with clients. Another watching of the movie seems necessary and I’m ready to bawl my eyes out listening to that peaceful tune that lets me know it’s ok to feel how I feel and to be the person I am, the good and the bad.