It is rare for a sequel to live up to the original but in this case it surpasses it! I watched this with a group of friends form church and we reflected on it together afterwards. We had seen the original about three months ago and that had been well received.
This is a Disney Pixar animation which shows the state of the art with graphics that look so smooth and life-like. In describing the film, I have to give a little bit of the plot away but I don't think that will spoil things for you as this is not a plot-driven film.
The central premise is that we spend most of the film inside the head of Riley - a girl who in the first film was eight and who now reaches 13 and puberty! Riley is controlled by a number of emotions who appear as anthropomorphised avatars at the control console of her emotions. As the emotions tussle for influence and control so Riley undergoes changes in mood and behaviour.
In the first film, Joy was the dominant emotion - as it should be in childhood. Alongside Joy were Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust. A nice neat quintet. With the onset of puberty a maintenance crew turn up to upgrade the console and with the new console comes some additional emotions. Life for Riley is about to become much more complicated.
As Riley makes the jump to High School which enforces a separation from her two closest ice hockey playing friends, so she also has to navigate relinquishing some of her sacred childhood totems as she tries to step up in the world and join in with the big girls.
With new emotion Anxiety taking control of the console and the former set of emotions banished, Riley struggles to get to grips with Envy, Embarrassment and Ennui. The former emotions embark on a journey to recover Riley's sense of self which was banished to the back of her mind by Anxiety. Can they succeed and integrate the old emotions with the new in a way that Riley can cope with, without having a breakdown and which helps her developing teen-self, develop a healthy and evolving sense of self?
Again, the script and narrative are based on well informed psychology and highlight all the right issues, so much so that some watching found that it uncomfortably reawakened their struggles with their transition through puberty. Not bad for an animation!!
This film is a gift to those leading teenage youth groups or working with youngsters that could profit from this indirect way of inviting conversations about our emotions, how we use them and how we can try and maintain a healthy balance. I thought it was excellent and give it 9/10.
