Rating: 3.5/5
Riley just turned 13 and attends hockey camp with her two best friends. On the morning of her going to camp, however, the puberty alarm goes off, and some new emotions join the team: Envy, Embarrassment, Ennui, and Anxiety. If that isn’t enough, Riley discovers that her friends aren’t attending the same school as her next year.
At her core, Riley believes she’s a good person. But anxiety sees a million futures in which everything goes wrong. So, it’s time to repress some emotions and build a new self based on these projections. We follow Joy, Anger, Disgust, Fear, and Sadness as they fight to loosen Anxiety’s reign and potentially unlock some repressed memories.
With Pixar announcing that they’ll play it safe with sequels and familiar IP, this film can appear as the last glimmer or the sign of things to come. Like many of their sequels, this film takes on a smaller story and invariably retreads familiar territory from its first movie. But both movies share a core message — all emotions are valuable. We can experience them and the world around us without losing ourselves.
Is this movie going to change the world or win awards? Probably not. But compared to Pixar’s weaker output lately (except for Turning Red, which I loved), this is a reminder that they can still hit, even if it isn’t to the caliber they once did.
After the movie, the kids behind me asked each other which emotion they were — props to the kid who boldly claimed Fear.