Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that Joy said “I don’t know how to stop anxiety. Maybe that’s what happens when you grow up, you feel less joy” in Inside Out 2.
Inside Out 2 brings back Amy Poehler as Joy and Phyllis Smith as Sadness, but it also ushers in a new range of emotions that come with growing up—or, more specifically, with puberty. Riley is getting older, and when the puberty alarm goes off, the emotions must try to figure out how to navigate what is happening to their girl (all while she’s at a hockey camp that could change her high school life).
The first film made me wish I had it to watch as a pre-teen. I moved across the country, had no friends, and was told all the time that I was a “happy girl.” In a lot of ways, I was like Riley, and I never really knew or understood back then that it was okay to not be okay. So when the second movie was coming out, I wasn’t sure how I would find a way to be as emotionally invested. And yet, director Kelsey Mann found a way to really highlight those feelings of anxiety and envy that come with growing up and stay with us.