Watching brilliant folks celebrate and mourn John Heaston, our beloved Reader leader, has been a hell of a thing. He was a hell of a guy, so that’s fitting.
I haven’t written about his passing. Not because I don’t care. The opposite. Very much the opposite.
Much like my reviews – and odd as it may seem, this is one of those, I swear – I just don’t see a point in sharing my opinion if it is redundant and inferior to everyone else’s. I keep social-media-stumbling into memories of John so beautiful, so palpably important, that mine feel so useless to put in front of others.
I don’t even remember how we met. Isn’t that just awful and stupid? He was just always in my life. Like, my entire adulthood. I do remember the last time we talked. I’ll live in that one for a long time. Remixing and replaying what I wish I had said. I’ve praised him in print a ton of times, but I’ll always wish I had said a better goodbye.
I am not kidding, this is a review for Pixar’s animated sequel Inside Out 2. Bear with me.
Of the myriad things folks have rightly remembered John to be, he was a North Star for so many of us. The number of things I have done in my life because that man said “come on, sure you can” is legitimately insane. The last time we spoke, he was telling me where he hoped The Reader would go from here, now that Nebraska Public Media has the reins. He was, so close to the end, still every bit the gruff optimist that everyone is so perfectly presenting him to be.
It took a few weeks, but at a certain point, it felt more disrespectful of who John was to not do this, to not write some kind of cultural criticism. No, I do not think writing a stupid movie review is some kind of noble gesture. This is just me explaining why I’m talking about an animated blockbuster shortly after someone important to me died.
As “luck” would have it, Inside Out 2 is a movie all about the overwhelming emotions we feel when life shifts gears. To be clear, they didn’t add Grief as a character in this one. If they did, I like to think Werner Herzog would be the voice. Still, this is a film designed to ease viewers through a painful transition. That transition is literally a young girl going through puberty…so there are some differences.
In this wholly unneeded sequel, the mental headquarters of 13-year-old Riley (Kensington Tallman) is making room for new residents. Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Disgust (Liza Lapira), Fear (Tony Hale), and Anger (Lewis Black) are now joined by Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), and Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser). The crowded control room struggles, as Riley is going through some big-time, David Bowie-sized ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.
At a hockey camp, she finds out her two besties are going to go to a different high school. Afraid of being friendless, Anxiety takes the helm and steers Riley directly toward a downward spiral, convinced that if she doesn’t make the varsity team as a freshman, she will suffer unspeakable loneliness. Anxiety banishes the original core four emotions to the back of Riley’s brain, where they must retrieve her rejected sense of self before the teen becomes a true terror. The stakes are low but feel immense, which is exactly how life always feels.
Inside Out 2 accurately depicts a panic attack, hypothesizes that joy isn’t a big part of adulthood, and urges an embrace of all memories and feelings, not just the good ones. It doesn’t say anything particularly insightful or notable. It’s largely forgettable but perfectly serviceable. It’ll probably do a billion dollars because it is so perfectly, nebulously, inoffensively “just okay.” And yet, there’s something neat about telling young people that emotions of all kinds are valuable.
As someone with capital-A Anxiety, my desire to run and hide from some emotions right now is strong. Watching Joy fling painful memories into a void, it was hard not to wish for a similar ejection button for my own brain. Inside Out 2 is not great, but insofar as it reminded me to feel all of life in this moment, it was a welcomed experience. To be human is to be a mess almost at all times, and we have to embrace the bad feelings and bad times to be the best versions of ourselves.
I miss my friend.
Grade = B-
Other Critical Voices to Consider
Gissane Sophia at Marvelous Geeks Media says “The sequel is bold, sharp, and so deeply heartfelt that as cliche as some of these messages might be, they’re perpetual reminders viewers everywhere could use no matter how old they are.”
Felix Vasquez at Cinema Crazed says “Its predecessor set the bar high and the sequel never quite hits that bar. Inside Out 2 is stuck in the middle of trying to figure out what it’s trying to say and hitting that bottom line of introducing new characters for the sake of merchandise sales.”
Dana Han-Klein at Out Magazine says “While it may be slightly more complicated, Inside Out 2 doesn’t feel as complex or sophisticated as its predecessor. It’s only mildly hyperbolic to say that Inside Out changed the way we were able to communicate about emotions. It painted a vivid and creative interpretation of what the inside of a mind should be like. While the sequel takes that framework, it doesn’t feel like it adds to it in a meaningful way.”