Pixar is back in theaters with another continuation of a franchise. They brought back the emotions for Inside Out Two, and they also added in a few new emotions. Although it did not stray too far away from the original story line, it was different enough to stay entertaining and create that emotional pull that Pixar is so good at creating. Also the storyline had a strong focus on sports, which made it quite relatable.
Inside Out Two continues following Riley’s story. She has just finished her last year of middle school, and she is about to move up to high school, but the problem is that her friends that she has gotten so close to are not going to the same school as her, so she had that emotional bomb dropped on her, and it was the same day that her body started to go through puberty. So that amplified the emotions even more. There were three new emotions: anxiety, who plays the major role in this story, embarrassment, and boredom. When anxiety appeared, she took charge, and although it seemed like it was for the better at first, it ended up causing more problems in the end, but Anxiety sent all the other original emotions away, so she was in charge, until the others found their way back.
The part of this movie that resonated the most with me was the sports aspect. Riley is a hockey player, and when she realized that her friends were not coming to the same school as her, she realized that she needed to make new friends at her new school, so she left her other friends behind, and she made friends with the kids at the school she was going to go to. This also helped raise her likelihood of making the varsity hockey team, when she arrived at the new school. So it made sense for her to try and join the new team, but the problem was that she was not being the nicest to her older friends.
It reminded me of college. I rowed for the first two and a half years of college, and it was fun. It was very different from any other sport, but it allowed me to have friends outside of the team, and compete in intramurals easily, because it did not completely control my life. Then part way through junior year, I ran a half marathon that ended up helping me get onto the cross country/track team, and this did not change much initially, but as senior year approached, I decided to live with the running team, instead of the friends that I had been living with for three years. It felt like a breakup. I had to tell them that I was going to live with someone else, because we would be more on the same schedule.
To this day, it is something that haunts me. I feel so bad about it. Every once in a while, even five years after graduating, I will have a dream about having a conversation with my college roommate about how I am so sorry about having left and going to live somewhere else. We were like brothers, and I screwed it up. I do not think that he ever largely held it against me, although he had every right to. Then I ended up unknowingly getting anemic and becoming a recluse anyways, but it would have been so much more helpful to go through it with someone who felt like family. So when Riley was put in this hard place in the movie, I understood her choice of choosing the new girls, but I also knew the pain that she would felt, if she only chose to hang onto the new girls.
This is what the movie does best. The main new character is Anxiety, and it is felt throughout the film. Neither this or the original shies away from Riley making bad decisions. In the original, she steals money from her parents and tries to run away, and in the sequel, she breaks into the coach’s office and looks at the journal full of notes. It always feels a little out of place in a Disney movie, even more so in an animated one, but it still created the anxious feeling. You could feel the weight that Riley was feeling.
I did wonder while watching, how this resonated with the younger kids that would undoubtedly flock to see this animated Pixar film, and when I was leaving, there was a younger kid sitting on my row, and I heard his parents ask him what he thought of the movie, and he ecstatically said that he had a good time. So despite the main theme of the movie being about dealing with anxiety and making friends in your teenage years, this little kid was still able to enjoy the visuals and have a good time.
My favorite character from the new installment was Bloofy. Bloofy was found locked away in the vault of Riley’s mind, but he was from a kid’s TV show that Riley used to watch. It gave off Dora vibes, as it asked for audience input, but it was a pink dog that looked more like a tortured soul, so it reminded me more of Courage the Cowardly Dog. It was a goofy limited side plot, but I wanted it to last so much longer. All the characters found in Riley’s secret vault did add to the value of the movie, mostly in a comedic sense, but that is a good addition either way.
I watched a different sports movie this weekend as well, I, Tonya. This was the story of Tonya Harding, who I really only knew from her controversy of being involved in the beating of Nancy Carigan, so that Carigan could hopefully not compete, but this story painted Tonya in a much more sympathetic light.
Tonya grew up in an abusive household, and her father left her when she was at a young age. This affected her greatly, but she also married a man, who was abusive. So for all of her life, she was surrounded by abuse, and her solace was ice skating. They also painted the picture in a way that made it look like she was not the one responsible for the beating of Carigan, that it all fell on her husband’s shoulders, and even he was not fully aware of what was going to happen. Initially, they just wanted Carigan to get a death threat to mentally rattle her, but it ended up much worst.
The end result was Tonya being banned from competing in ice skating for the rest of her life, which the movie depicted as an unfair judgment. I had always heard that she was guilty of this crime and not much else, so I was surprised at the direction that this film took that made her seem like a sympathetic character. I felt for her, when the judge said she was not longer able to compete, and it broke her heart. I cannot imagine being told that I would never be allowed to race again. I love the training so much more than the actual racing, but for the community aspect, the competing plays a key role, and it also allows you to celebrate all the training that has been done. So being banned from competing for life at 23 is brutal. In the words of the movie, it was like she was getting a life sentence, but her husband and his friend were only getting an 18-month slap on the wrist. She barely did anything. The punishments were not equivalent, she got punished much worse for doing much less. Is the movie accurate? I do not know, but it made me think about the whole thing differently.
Between these two sports adjacent movie, I can say that I recommend watching both. I gave Inside Out Two 4 stars, and I gave I, Tonya 3.5 stars. Inside Out Two was the first movie all year, where I heard multiple people at work talking about going to see it, and I heard multiple people in running group talking about going to see it. It seems odd to me that all these people, who mostly do not have children were so excited to see this film, when so many other good ones had come out this year, but I get excited to hear when anyone is excited to go see a movie, so I hope they go, and I hope they enjoy it!
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