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At the end of “Intensely”the 2015 Pixar film about the emotional life of a girl named Riley, appears a new button on the console that is used to control the mood by Riley. He is adorned with one word: puberty.
Joy, one of the main characters who embodies Riley’s emotions, downplays it.
“Things couldn’t be better!” she says happily. “After all, Riley is now 12 years old. What could happen?”
The answer finally came, almost a decade later, in the sequel “Intensely 2″. Riley is now a teenager attending a three-day hockey camp while new and more complex feelings They take root in your mind.
This Shamea heavy guy who tries, unsuccessfully, to hide under his hoodie; Ennui, who looks like a noodle and lies nonchalantly on an armchair; and Envywith his eyes wide open and longing.
But it is Anxiety who takes center stage, entering Riley’s mind with literal luggage (no less than six suitcases).
“Okay, how can I help?” she asks. “I can take notes, drink coffee, manage your calendar, walk your dog, carry your things… watch you sleep?”
A little anxiety can be helpful, experts say, but the excitement is gone out of control in the lives of many young people, especially in recent years. Riley’s struggle is emblematic: for Kelsey Mann, the director, the film became an opportunity to help viewers of all ages feel less alone.
“A big part of dealing with our emotions is actually naming them,” he tells New York Times in a recent interview. “And suddenly, “When they are recognized and seen, the intensity begins to go down a little.”.
In the film, the anxiety can be… a lot. But finally conveys some powerful lessons: Experiencing some anxiety is normal, our flaws are simply part of who we are and all emotional experiences are an important part of our identity.
“Even the emotions uncomfortable are natural and necessary”says Lisa Damour, a clinical psychologist who advised the filmmakers.
“They help keep us safe and guide us,” adds Damour, who has written for The Times and is the author of three books about teenagers. “You can’t prevent them or close them if you hope to prosper,” she points out.
It’s when Anxiety goes off the rails, driving out Joy and the other core emotions and projecting disastrous scenarios, that Riley becomes overwhelmed.
“Anxiety was always meant to be the antagonist of the film.”, but in early drafts of the script, the character seemed almost like a cardboard villain,” says Mann. He also highlights that this emotion was not very nice and he did not understand why he behaved that way.
So he delved into scientific research and spoke with Dr. Damour and Dacher Keltner, an expert in the science of emotions and a psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who also worked on the first film. Ultimately, Mr. Mann’s team decided that Anxiety was motivated by love for Riley, just like Joy.
Her job, as she sees it, is to plan for the future and protect Riley “from the scary things she can’t see.” As her personality took shape, the filmmakers injected a bit of whimsy into Ansiedad’s appearance.
Her orange hair shoots upward like a bouquet of gravity-defying optical fibers. His eyebrows dance over his piercing eyes as his mouth stretches into a toothy smile that’s part grimace.
Anxiety aims to protect Riley at all costs imagining all the possible mistakes the teenager could make. But it is a strategy destined to fail.
The theme of perfectionism is present throughout the film and generates much of Riley’s anxiety. She is sometimes incredibly hard on herself and struggles to reconcile the opposing characteristics that exist within her: she is kind and also selfish. She is brave, but she also gets scared.
“We often think of ourselves in an ‘either/or’ way,” Keltner points out. “But we are many things,” she adds, and the film encourages teenagers to embrace that notion.
Dr. Keltner sees the film as a call to be kinder to ourselves, savor the good things, and embrace complexity. Riley’s anxiety is not pathological, he says; It is an emotion that tries to tell you something.
“Emotions have the wisdom of age,” he details. He successively says that he hopes young people listen to the good intentions of those emotions.
“Anxiety is something that many children experiment, but they don’t always have a label for it”, explains Elana R. Bernstein, an assistant professor at the University of Dayton School of Education and Health Sciences who was not involved in the making of the film. “I think the first part is normalizing it.”
By recognizing the feeling and coming up with coping strategies (identifying catastrophic thoughts or trying relaxation techniques, for example), younger children can prepare for the more complicated situations that will arise as they get older, says Dr. Bernstein, who researches strategies. in schools to reduce anxiety.
In our culture, Dr. Damour notes, we often It is said that mental health is about “feeling good.” But really, it’s about having feelings that fit what’s happening and then managing them well.
And that’s fair What Riley must learn: that anxiety and joy can’t be in control at the same time. The film’s screenwriters, Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein, found this relatable.
When she was younger, Ms. LeFauve’s father used to call her “Moody Meg.”
“I’m sure I was difficult to live with!” she revealed in an email. “I was a bundle of swinging emotions and raging anxiety.”
Now he realizes that his sensitivity arose “from the beauty of my intense imagination.”
“When my anxiety becomes too strong I need to look for even a breath of joy,” he acknowledged.
Holstein pointed out that Anxiety is something that has both positive and negative attributes. And it’s an emotion that can feel more intense during puberty.
“At different times in your life, you are driven by different things,” he said. “Sometimes joy has to take a step back.”
The New York Times
