Riley teaches us that we must first recognize our flaws to experience the true joy of forgiveness.
On Wednesday, Inside Out 2 became Pixar Studio’s highest grossing film, bringing in over $1 billion in revenue. Inside Out 2 is also the top grossing movie of the year and the fourth highest grossing animated film of all time.
Since 2020, Pixar has struggled to produce box office hits (Credit: TheWrap)
Since Pixar’s 2020 flop Onward, the studio has struggled to please audiences, with no film earning over $200 million until Inside Out 2. While some have declared Inside Out 2 to be a continuation of Pixar’s slump, the film’s box office success, amazing animation, stellar score, and standout storytelling say otherwise. Director Kelsey Mann delivers a story that speaks powerfully to the human condition—spoilers ahead.
The film introduces new features to the landscape of Riley’s (Kensington Tallman’s) mind. The five cardinal emotions—Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Tony Hale), and Disgust (Liza Lapira)—discover a belief system (represented by an aquifer) at the core of Riley’s mind. Memories (represented by marbles) placed in the aquifer create beliefs (represented by strings). These beliefs cohere into Riley’s “sense of self,” depicted as a plant.
Initially, Joy, the chief emotion and the protagonist of Riley’s psyche, curates the set of memories that enter the belief system. Joy keeps “good” memories—like Riley assisting the game-winning hockey goal—and relegates “bad” memories—like Riley earning a penalty that almost cost her team the game—to the “back of the mind.” In the words of Joy, “We keep the best and... toss the rest!”
As a result, Riley develops a stunted sense of self. Riley expresses her sense of self in her own words—"I'm a good person.” This declaration reeks of a pelagian naiveté—Riley only thinks that she is a good person because Joy has suppressed the memories of her bad actions.
When Riley hits puberty, several new emotions arrive, including Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), and Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos). Anxiety, with her eerie planning capabilities, quickly establishes herself as the ringleader of the new emotions.
Anxiety claims her job is to protect Riley from “the scary stuff she can’t see.” When Riley’s best friends and hockey teammates Grace (Grace Lu) and Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green) tell her that they will be attending a different high school, Anxiety reveals an unseen danger—a friendless four years of high school.
Anxiety plans for Riley to abandon Grace and Bree to make friends on the varsity hockey team. When Joy interferes, Anxiety banishes the cardinal emotions from headquarters and sends Riley’s original sense of self to the back of the mind.
As the cardinal emotions embark on a journey to rescue Riley’s former sense of self, Anxiety, like Joy before her, begins curating beliefs for Riley. While Joy curates declarative beliefs (“I'm a really good friend”), Anxiety curates conditional beliefs (“If I'm good at hockey, I'll have friends”).
To fulfill Anxiety’s conditions, Riley commits several transgressions—she lies, excludes her friends, and sneaks into the coach’s office. Anxiety eventually cultivates a new sense of self for Riley. With echoes of Riley’s former sense of self in the background (“I’m a good person”), Riley develops a new sense of self that makes your stomach drop—”I’m not good enough!”
Taken one way, Anxiety’s sense of self is false—Riley’s worth does not hinge on her hockey successes. Taken another way, Anxiety’s sense of self is damningly true. After all, at the back of Riley’s mind is an Everest of failures and immoral actions that Joy has quarantined from Riley’s understanding of herself.
While Anxiety reckons with Riley’s flaws, Joy has a similar reckoning as she excavates Riley’s former sense of self from the mountain of bad memories. Joy realizes that the only way back to headquarters is to create an explosion and ride an avalanche of bad memories to the belief system. Amid the avalanche, Joy experiences a quasi-baptismal moment of submersion, overwhelmed by the deluge of Riley’s flaws and need for redemption.
Meanwhile, Anxiety attempts to redeem Riley through her own efforts. Anxiety desperately tries to score three goals in a scrimmage to impress the coach and earn a spot on the varsity roster. Anxiety, consumed by this monomaniacal endeavor, has Riley steal the puck from her teammate and collide with Grace, earning Riley a two minute trip to the penalty box.
As Anxiety works herself into a frenzy and causes Riley to have a panic attack, Joy surfs to the belief system on a tidal wave of bad memories, which begin to sprout beliefs. Upon arrival at headquarters, Joy admonishes Anxiety, saying, “You don't get to choose who Riley is.”
But this admonition also convicts Joy, who realizes that she, like Anxiety, had been trying to dictate who Riley was. Joy discovers that she cannot make Riley good by her will alone. Recognizing her mistake, Joy discards Riley’s former senses of self and allows a new one to grow with bad memories in tow.
As the bad memories flood Riley’s sense of self, Riley for the first time gains a painful consciousness of her fallen nature. But this consciousness ultimately equips her to ask for—and receive—unmerited forgiveness from her friend Bree and her (aptly named) friend Grace. This beautiful act of forgiveness allows Riley to experience unalloyed joy, which Pixar represents as sparkles beckoning Joy to the control console.
After Riley’s redemptive experience, her mind is once again governed by Joy, but a transformed Joy—a joy aware of Riley’s inadequacy and need for forgiveness. Inside Out 2 teaches an important lesson for children of all ages—we must first recognize our flaws to experience the true joy of forgiveness.
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