Anxiety in Inside Out 2 Is Too Real

NY Times critic Maya Phillips wrote about seeing her anxiety reflected in Pixar’s Inside Out 2.

When an emotion takes over in the “Inside Out” movies, a control board in Riley’s mind changes to that feeling’s color; Anxiety’s takeover, however, is more absolute. She creates a stronghold in Riley’s imagination, where she forces mind workers to illustrate negative hypothetical scenarios for Riley’s future. Soon, Riley’s chief inner belief is of her inadequacy; the emotions hear “I’m not good enough” as a low, rumbling refrain in her mind.

I’m familiar with anxiety’s hold on the imagination; my mind is always writing the script to the next worst day of my life. It’s already embraced all possibilities of failure. And my anxiety’s ruthless demands for perfection often turn my thoughts into an unrelenting roll-call of self-criticisms and insecurities.

And yet — Anxiety isn’t the villain of this movie.

A cursory spin around social media reveals many other people who identified with that aspect of the film.

I really enjoyed this movie and loved that they didn’t make Anxiety the villain. It would have been so easy to do so — Hollywood has a habit of really dumbing things down, especially in movies aimed at kids. The filmmakers seemed to understand that anxiety is the flip-side of a coin that includes some mixture of watchfulness, anticipation, and exhilaration. That emotion can be useful to people, until it spins out of the control as in the movie and then it wreaks havoc.

• Inside Out
• Maya Phillips
• movies
• Pixar