5 – INTENSELY 2
(Inside Out 2/United States, 2024)
Director: Kelsey Mann
Screenplay: Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein
Duration: 100 minutes
Featuring the original voices of Maya Hawke, Ayo Edebiri, Tony Hale, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Liza Lapira and Amy Poehler
Up: a high adventure (2008) summarized in a couple of minutes the decades of marriage of Carl and Ellie, who met during childhood. There was the wedding, the free time imagining shapes of the clouds, the move, the preparations for the son, the pain of his loss, the love of decades illustrated in the knotting of a tie, the imminent death of Ellie and the opacity of Carl after his departure. It was – remains – a remarkable montage sequence for two reasons. One is that it doesn’t need dialogue or words to be emotional; only images that, like postcards, perfectly describe how that man’s life went from the future-filled luminosity of youth to the gray life of old age. The other, that the viewer gives with a bow his empathy towards him, with his loneliness and sadness, and from then on he only wants the story to bring him joy.
Inside Out 2 It also uses a montage sequence in its first minutes to inform what happened to Riley in the years that passed since the previous film, that is, on her path from childhood to the gates of adolescence where she is today. We see the changes in her body, the first fights with her parents, whispers with friends and her foray into ice hockey. But we also hear Joy – one of the emotions that control Riley’s internal world – talking about basically the same thing we see. Unlike the sequence of Up, here it is not told or narrated: it is said. The formal laziness, the resignation of subtlety in pursuit of ease and the distrust in the intelligence of its viewers – even in the case of the sub-12 target at which it aims – is a symptom of the stuff that the new Pixar film is made of.
Having become one of the tentacles of the Disney empire drained Pixar of an important portion of its good ideas. Starting with the originals, since what there is is a new sequel from a studio that knew how to resist the temptation of overexploitation. The positive side of the matter is that, since it is a universe already presented, the film does not need to invent rules that explain its operation all the time, which translates into an agile, fluid and brief story (one hundred minutes, credits included). that prevents any hint of bogging down throughout this new visit to the central command of Riley’s emotions. Of emotions and identity, given that now there is a luminous scepter that looks like an incomprehensible modern work and represents the values, the morals of the little lady.
These are intense times for her: her body is a torrent, an ice hockey test at the new school serves her up with contact with an older player whom she admires and wants to hit (and look like), she doesn’t really know how to act nor what to do with her “old” friends from the previous school, who are not very popular to say the least. With so much gale come two new emotions, Envy and Anxiety. Which makes sense in narrative terms, but above all because Disney, always very attentive to the agenda, is fond of talking about youth mental health.
The good news is that Inside Out 2 It does not go that way, but rather through the frantic back and forth between Anxiety and Joy to see clearly what is in order, giving it an imprint more adventurous than instructive. In between, of course, there will be a few jokes: some good, most more or less and a couple very good, all starring Nostalgia, an emotion in the form of a grandmother ready to long for the past and whom everyone wants to keep locked up for a while. more time. If the chorizo-making machine requires a third part, perhaps going that route will obtain better results.
