Inside Out 2 (2024) Movie

Inside Out 2 is a 2024 American animated coming-of-age film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. The sequel to Inside Out (2015), it was directed by Kelsey Mann (in his feature directorial debut) and produced by Mark Nielsen, from a screenplay written by Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein, and a story conceived by Mann and LeFauve.[3][4] The film stars Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Diane Lane, and Kyle MacLachlan reprising their roles from the first film with Tony Hale (replacing Bill Hader as Fear), Liza Lapira (replacing Mindy Kaling as Disgust), Maya Hawke, Ayo Edebiri, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Paul Walter Hauser, and Kensington Tallman (replacing Kaitlyn Dias as Riley) joining the cast. It tells the story of Riley’s emotions as they find themselves joined by new emotions that want to take over Riley’s head.

Inside Out 2 was first announced in September 2022 during the D23 Expo announcement, with Mann, Nielsen, and LeFauve attached as director, producer, and writer, respectively, while Poehler was revealed to reprise her role in the film, along with Smith, Black, Lane, and MacLachlan. Hale, Lapira, and Hawke joined the cast in November 2023, while Edebiri, Exarchopoulos, Hauser, and Tallman’s roles were confirmed in March 2024. That same month, Holstein was confirmed to have co-written the screenplay with LeFauve. The film features Pixar chief creative officer Pete Docter’s “five to 27 emotions” idea from the first film that Mann pitched during its production to utilize “truthful” worldbuilding.

Inside Out 2 premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on June 10, 2024, and is scheduled for release in theaters in the United States on June 14, 2024. The film received positive reviews from critics.

Plot
Set one year after the first film, Riley has just turned 13 and is about to attend high school. Her emotions, Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust, have since created a new section of Riley’s mind called her Sense of Self, which houses memories and feelings that take up Riley’s core personality. Riley goes to hockey camp so that she can apply for a hockey team at her designated high school, the Fire Hawks. Wanting to make a good impression, the emotions use a mechanism Joy has created to launch any negative memories to the back of Riley’s mind. On the night before she leaves, the emotion console sounds off a “Puberty” alarm. After the emotions get rid of the alarm, a group of mind workers barge into headquarters and cause a mess of the place while upgrading the console and warn the emotions that “the others” are coming.

Immediately after, morning arrives and the emotions discover that whenever they interact with the console, it causes Riley to overreact. When Riley is taken to Hockey Camp, she finds out that her friends, Breeanna “Bree” Young and Grace Hsieh, are going to a different high school. Things for Riley become more stressful when she gains four new emotions that come to Headquarters; Envy, Ennui and Embarrassment and their leader Anxiety. Despite welcoming the new emotions, Joy and her friends feel that they might disrupt Riley’s life, with Anxiety being the stand-out example due to her need to make Riley think up any negative scenario. Joy and Anxiety clash on how to have Riley act during Hockey Camp, with Joy wanting Riley to have fun while Anxiety thinks Riley should focus on practice to get on the Fire Hawks. Soon, Anxiety has had enough of Joy dismissing her and decides that Riley’s Sense of Self is holding her back.

Feeling that a change is in order, Anxiety dumps the Sense of Self into the back of Riley’s mind. She also considers the old emotions redundant and has Embarrassment put them in a giant glass jar, which is then taken to a vault below Riley’s mind where a group of imaginary characters that Riley has developed in her head over the years are being held. One of the characters, Bloofy, a cartoon dog from a pre-school show that Riley loved, helps the emotions escape. Meanwhile, Anxiety and the other new emotions create a group of negative memories to create a more, corrupted Sense of Self for Riley for her to have what Anxiety sees as a better future. The old emotions use a recall tube to send Sadness to Headquarters while the others go to the Back of the Mind to retrieve Riley’s Sense of Self.

Sadness makes it back, but the new emotions capture her before she can help her friends. While trying to get to the back of the mind, Joy and the other emotions see that Anxiety is corrupting Riley with negative feelings, which includes trying to make friends with Val by copying her, which strains her friendship with Bree and Grace even more. Soon, the emotions make it to the back of Riley’s mind and get her Sense of Self from the top of a mountain of bad memories that were stored there. In their haste to get the Sense of Self, the emotions cause an avalanche that takes them back to Headquarters, where chaos is running on account of Anxiety’s new corrupted Sense of Self while she was frantically controlling Riley during her final hockey game. The old emotions manage to make it back before any more damage can be done and Joy convinces Anxiety that she doesn’t need to make Riley change herself to have a better future. Joy’s encouragement causes both Anxiety and Riley to ease up.

After the hockey match, Riley makes peace with Bree and Grace, and Val becomes her new friend alongside the rest of the Fire Hawks. Soon, the first and second generation of emotions make peace and live together protecting Riley’s forever-changing Sense of Self.

Directed by Kelsey Mann
Screenplay by Meg LeFauve Dave Holstein