On Thursday, September 12, Pixar announced on their social media handles that Inside Out 2 will premiere on the Disney+ streaming platform on September 25. The sequel to the 2015 family/comedy Inside Out became a blockbuster hit, grossing $1 billion at the global box office.
The coming-of-age film follows a young girl named Riley on her journey from being a baby to a kid and then a teenager in the latest sequel. The journey is explored through the emotions she feels with every new achievement or loss. The first film showed how little Riley learns the emotions of happiness, anger, disgust, fear, and sadness.
When Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler) disappears from the emotions headquarters controlled by Riley’s mind, the girl becomes depraved of happiness and sets out on a dangerous and isolating path directed by all the negative emotions. Meanwhile, sadness touches many of Riley’s cherished memories despite Joy’s resistance.
However, when Joy finally finds her way back to the headquarters, she realizes that sadness is a powerful and necessary emotion to express. This teaches viewers a valuable lesson about balancing emotions to live a fulfilled life and berate toxic positivity.
In the sequel, Riley enters her teen years, and with it comes several new and complex emotions — anxiety, ennui, envy, embarrassment, etc. who navigate her life amidst the chaos of friends, school, and family. As Riley tries to adapt to her teenage years, her old emotions try to adapt to the possibility of being replaced. The sequel included returning cast members like Poehler as Joy, Phyllis Smith as Sadness, Lewis Black as Anger, Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan as Riley’s parents.
The new members voicing new emotions were Maya Hawke as anxiety, Ayo Edebiri as Envy, Kensington Tallman voicing teen Riley, Tony Hale as fear, and Liza Lapira as disgust (played by Mindy Kaling in the first film). Lilimar, Grace Lu, Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green, Adèle Exarchopoulos, and Paul Walter Hauser are some other additions to the cast.
