Nobody could have expected this film to live up to its brilliant 2015 predecessor, which earned a well-deserved Oscar nomination for its ingenious script.
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| While Joy (yellow), Disgust (green) and Anger (red) watch with horror, Envy (turquoise) and Anxiety (orange) seize control of their beloved Riley's behavior, with disastrous results. |
Recall, from the first film, that young Riley’s life was upended when her parents (voiced by Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan) moved them from the Midwest to San Francisco. This shattering adjustment taxed the skills of the emotional avatars in Riley’s noggin, who collaborate to keep her every thought and action (somewhat) under control: Joy (Amy Poehler), Anger (Lewis Black), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Tony Hale, taking over here for Bill Hader) and Disgust (Liza Lapira, similarly replacing Mindy Kaling).
Several years have passed, and Riley (Kensington Tallman) has become a well-adjusted middle-schooler: intelligent, kind-hearted, generous and blessed with a pair of inseparable besties: Grace (Grace Lu) and Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green). They do everything together; they’re also members of the school hockey team, where Riley is a shining star who — as the academic year concludes — has attracted the attention of talent scout Coach Roberts (Yvette Nicole Brown).
It has been smooth sailing for the emotions, and Joy — their de facto leader — is delighted by the way they’ve molded Riley into a “good person” via careful manipulation of their complex control panel.
Even so, the first hint of trouble concerns the means by which Joy has brought everyone to this happy moment: a classic case of good intentions destined to go awry.
But that comes later. Far more seriously, these five emotions are aroused one night from their slumber — Riley being similarly asleep — by the relentless soft beep-beep of a previously unnoticed red monitor light ... which suddenly erupts into a shrieking klaxon.
As it happens, Riley had just celebrated her 13th birthday. And that red button?
Puberty.
Cue the arrival of four new emotions, destined to screw up everything: Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser) and — most regrettably — Anxiety (Maya Hawke).
As befits the nature and narrative function of these newcomers, they’re voiced by young women. (Hauser doesn’t really count, since Embarrassment barely speaks.) Anxiety is their unspoken supervisor, and she’s a 15 on the 10-point Richter Scale of Frenzied. Suddenly “steady as she goes” isn’t good enough; Anxiety worries about how Riley will be perceived in the immediate future, and particularly when she starts high school.
Thanks to the reconfigured control panel now in the hands of this new quartet, real-world Riley suddenly grapples with spontaneous mood swings, body odor, hyper-sensitivity, rash behavior, sullen truculence and all manner of other behavior that’ll be familiar to anybody who has known or parented a teenager. Or been one. Which is all of us.
(Odd, though, that she never reacts in horror to the conspicuous zit that remains on her chin for the rest of the film.)
And don’t try to argue that director Kelsey Mann and co-scripters Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein have exaggerated Riley’s behavior for comic impact, because they haven’t. (Not much, anyway.) It all looks and sounds quite authentic. While also being hilarious.
The major crisis arrives when Riley and her friends are invited to join Coach Roberts’ three-day hockey camp, where their talents will be assessed for the following year’s high school team. This puts Riley in direct contact with her much-admired hero, Valentina (Lilimar), captain of the varsity hockey team: effortlessly confident and benevolent, and rocking a signature red streak in her hair.
So: Should Riley remain the loyal friend, and spend this long weekend — as planned and promised — with Grace and Bree? Or should she shamelessly suck up to Valentina and her older, seasoned varsity teammates?
Joy has one answer to that dilemma; Anxiety has another. Guess who wins.
Worse yet, Anxiety and her comrades banish Joy and the others to the far, far side of Riley’s consciousness, where they’ll be unable to interfere. Yikes!
This part of the story, as Joy and her troupe attempt to make their way back, isn’t as well defined as was the case in the first film; the numerous obstacles feel random (particularly a Macy’s Parade-style collection of giant balloon Possible Future Careers). Although the destination is clear — the starburst representation of Riley’s better self, which Anxiety discarded — the journey is bizarre.
That said, an interlude with once-cherished and now-forgotten cartoon characters is quite funny — and has a clever third-act payoff — and the scripters also get droll mileage out of encounters with Riley’s “stream of consciousness” and the sudden eruption of a “sar-chasm.”
Because the shrill Anxiety dominates so much of the lengthy second act, Envy and Ennui don’t contribute much, beyond their comical appearance and mannerisms. Ennui’s apathetic “droopy noodle posture” is quite amusing; she’s also the emotion forever distracted by technology (a remote-control, rather than a smartphone).
Embarrassment is a vibrant exception. He’s a rotund, gentle giant: too large to successfully hide, although he constantly tries to do so, forever blushing and retreating within his oversize hoodie, shoving hands into pockets, and bending over so that the faintest bit of butt crack shows (a guaranteed chuckle every time). But just as Sadness rose to the occasion in the first film — and does so again here — Embarrassment becomes an unexpectedly helpful ally.
Pixar voice stalwart John Ratzenberger pops up as a blue-collar crane operator named Fritz, and June Squibb has a cute cameo, as Nostalgia.
The clever visual metaphors, also retained from the first film, remain charming: particularly the notion that individual memories are preserved within soft, colorful spheres that are carefully stored in the labyrinthine recesses of Riley’s consciousness.
This story’s underlying message also is heartwarming and worth carving in granite: Our best selves are the product of all memories, thoughts and actions — virtuous and lamentable — and interfering with that balance will have unpleasant results.
I’ve said it before, and it bears repeating: Pixar still produces some of the sharpest scripts — and films — coming out of Hollywood. Long may they reign.
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