The Media Tourist

Disney/Pixar inventively goes inside the mind of a girl going into puberty, and it’s a wonderfully wild ride

Inside Out 2
With the voices of Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Maya Hawke & Ayo Edebiri
Directed by Kelsey Mann
Rated G

In theaters Friday, June 14

Almost a decade ago, Inside Out plunged us into the noggin of a young girl named Riley and a dedicated team of cartoonish characters—representing her emotions—helping her navigate childhood with a healthy balance of appropriate feelings.  

In this disarmingly creative coming-of-age sequel, the emotions in Riley’s head are once again led by Amy Poehler as the voice of Joy, the perky, blue-haired leader of a front-lobe squadron of Sadness (Phyllis Smith, from The Office), Fear (Tony Hale), Anger (Lewis Black) and Disgust (The Equalizer’s Liza Lapira). Things are running smoothly; Riley, now 13 and on the cusp of high school, has become a good student, a great friend, a loving daughter and a promising hockey player.

But when a flashing red Puberty alarm suddenly goes off in command central, everything changes. A demolition crew barges in to radically reorganize the control room in Riley’s cranium to make way for the erratic tides of hormonal turbulence—and a new crew of feelings. And Joy suddenly finds herself contending with the newcomers for control of Riley’s consciousness.

As Riley tries out for a spot on the high school hockey team, the new flood of emotions responds to her uncertainties, confusion and awkwardness, charting her chaotic trajectory into a new phase of adolescence. Will she abandon her former friends and hockey mates to hang with the older, cooler players? Will she let her sense of competitiveness prevail over her natural kindness and empathy? Will she keep her cute, little-girl crush on boy bands and videogame heroes, or forge ahead into the more grownup tastes of her future?

It’s a superbly inventive depiction of puberty—how it’s messy, moody and often funny—with a small army of voices behind its characters, like Envy (The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), Disgust (Liza Lapira from The Equalizer), Ennui (French actress Adele Exarchopoulos), and Riley’s mom and dad (Diane Lane and Kyle McLauglin). Even John Ratzenberg makes a voice appearance, as he’s done in a host of other Pixar films, as a blue-hued construction foreman. June Squibb is Nostalgia, and the musician Flea is a cop.

But Maya Hawke—yes, the daughter of actor Ethan Hawke—all but steals the show as the hyper, wide-eyed, ever-fretful Anxiety, vying with Joy for the upper hand in Riley’s personality. And if you’re curious about the person behind young Riley, you can catch Kensington Tallman in the recent Max comedy series Home Sweet Rome!  

It’s masterfully clever, charmingly warmhearted and emotionally resonant as Riley’s emotions encounter all sorts of cerebral obstacles, including a literal Stream of Consciousness, a turbulent Brainstorm, deep rifts of Sar-Chasm, mountains of memories and a dark vault of secrets and discarded mental clutter. It’s an immensely enjoyable ride through the mind of a young girl going through some quantum changes as she emerges from the cocoon of tweendom. The Disney/Pixar imagineers have scored another triumph, making Riley’s swirling cocktail of hormones into something terrifically ingenious and totally relatable.

Wee little ones might be challenged to keep up with the frantic pace, the spewing fountain of ideas, the cascade of wit and the generous dollops of wisdom. But older kids and their parents will love this touching, vibrantly entertaining spin on a familiar phase of childhood that tosses us to and fro before setting us on the pathway to adulthood.  

This brilliantly zany puberty parable may take place in the head, but it ultimately lands squarely on the heart.

—Neil Pond