Joy, sadness, anger, fear and disgust: the ensemble cast of emotions are back and in the same squidgy primary colours for Inside Out 2 . With much of the same vividness and imagination as Peter Docter’s box office-hit original from 2015 , this sequel is both faithful to the characters and spirit of its predecessor and expands thoughtfully on its existing world, exploring the turbulence of growing up in a teenager’s brain in a wildly creative way. Directed by relative newcomer Kelsey Mann and executive produced this time by Docter, the film picks up in the life of Riley (Kensington Tallman), the young girl whose brain we lived in – along with forays into those of her loving parents – in the first movie.
Here, she has just turned 13, and we are briefly informed she is a keen hockey player and talented student about to enter high school: we’re re-introduced to her as she glides through an exciting hockey game, scoring goals but also being sent to the penalty box for tripping. Still, all is more or less fine and in balance: Riley has been invited to a weekend hockey camp with the older girls and two of her middle-school pals. And then, one night, a big red button on her emotion control panel starts to flash: and that button is labelled “puberty”.
With typical visual flair, Mann and her Pixar cohort depict the changing emotions and challenges to Riley’s “sense of self” – here literalised as a kind of fragile, crystallised ornament built gradually by a series .