Few Disney movies have been as anticipated in my household as Inside Out 2. My 8-year-old daughter has watched the first Inside Out—low estimate here—ten thousand times. The only figure that probably comes close to rivaling that is the number of times she’s watched the Inside Out 2 trailer. Amidst a summer vacation, family visits, volleyball camp, Vacation Bible School, and other activities, however, we didn’t see the movie until a month-and-a-half after its release. Ordinarily, we would’ve been worried that a movie would still be in theaters after so long, but there were no such worries with Inside Out 2.
To the surprise of almost everyone—except my daughter and her friends—Inside Out 2 has not only been successful week in and week out this summer, but it’s also become 2024’s highest-grossing movie as well as the second-highest-grossing animated film in box office history. Those are pretty big achievements for a movie about a 13-year-old girl named Riley and her adventures at hockey camp.
Here’s the thing about Riley, though: she’s doing the same things most kids, and specifically, most other girls of school age have done this summer. She’s going to camp, playing with friends, goofing off, getting into “just enough” trouble, and planning her social life for the upcoming school year. It’s this last part that represents the biggest hiccup upon which Inside Out 2 hinges: Riley learns early on that her two best friends, Bree and Grace, will be attending a different high school. Last year, my daughter’s best friend left her elementary school, a loss to her soul that our entire family is still navigating.
What distinguishes Inside Out 2 from other coming-of-age films isn’t its psychological aspects or even its focus on anxiety. Rather, it’s a consistent focus on joy as salvation.
Unlike Riley, though, my daughter isn’t 13, nor has she hit puberty. Which is the other hiccup that Inside Out 2 hinges on. Due to puberty, Riley is suddenly hit with new emotions, specifically Anxiety. Anxiety overwhelms Riley, suppressing her other emotions, including Joy and Sadness. Anxiety causes Riley to make decisions she wouldn’t otherwise make, like snubbing her old friends so she can impress Val, the high school hockey star she idolizes.
Anxiety—personified as a reddish-orange sprite with fiery hair and piercing green eyes—convinces Riley that if she can simply prove she’s the best at hockey and befriend Val, then her first year in high school will be perfect, regardless of whether she stays friends with Bree and Grace. Riley should therefore do whatever’s necessary to be the best and fit in at camp, including ignoring and even making fun of Bree and Grace in front of the older—and therefore infinitely cooler—high school students.
I’ve thought a lot about what’s made Inside Out 2 so popular, especially since coming-of-age stories aren’t exactly new material for Disney or Pixar. 2022’s Turning Red, for example, focused on another 13-year-old going through puberty and dealing with complex emotions like anxiety. Compared to Inside Out 2’s success, though, Turning Red didn’t even recoup half its budget and was widely considered a box office flop.
What distinguishes Inside Out 2 from other coming-of-age films isn’t its psychological aspects or even its focus on anxiety. Rather, it’s a consistent focus on joy as salvation. Both Inside Out films present Joy as a bright yellow pixie with vibrant, spunky blue hair, an appearance based on that of a star. Even though the Inside Out movies are about internal emotions, Joy is meant to remind audiences of the heavens, of looking up and outward. She leads the other emotions, who defer to her, in their quest to help Riley. Joy is at the head of the ship, steering them to their proper places and contexts in Riley’s emotional landscape.
It bears mention here that the movies don’t name this character “Happiness.” We have a Sadness character, and when we think of the opposite of sadness, we often think of happiness. Yet the screenwriters chose Joy, a name that comes pre-packaged with spiritual connotations. (In Galatians 5:22, the Apostle Paul refers to joy as a “fruit of the Spirit.”) Joy is a specifically Christian virtue, one that comes from God—not from within. Whereas one might visit a psychologist to discuss anxiety, it’s more likely that one would go to a priest or a pastor to discuss joy. When viewed through this lens, Inside Out 2 opens up to viewers and critics in new ways.
Throughout most of Inside Out 2, Anxiety suppresses Joy. Yet when Anxiety first appears, she gives Joy honor, saying she’s happy to meet her and seeming genuine when saying so. For those of us who’ve experienced emotional anxiety, we may recognize that feeling of acknowledging joy’s presence—of knowing a fruit of the Holy Spirit is accessible to us—yet suppressing that feeling anyway and giving in to anxiety. We may even know that anxiety is a natural, biological response, but that doesn’t mean our ability to feel joy isn’t still suppressed. The devil trades in fear, even through the defense mechanisms that anxiety provides.
We see this as Anxiety overwhelms even Riley’s conscience, and not just her emotions. How many of us—and how many young women like my daughter—struggle with their conscience while lacking a clear way or the specific know-how to navigate those feelings? How many of us, adults and children alike, yearn for the simple reassurance that Joy will win the day?
Anxiety says she can “help” Riley move forward socially so long as she acts like someone else, so long as Riley pretends to think bands that she actually loves are uncool, so long as she dyes her hair pink to fit in even though it’s not her style, and so long as she sins by sneaking into the coach’s office to read her private notebook. Yet Anxiety dupes Riley; she has Riley hyper-focus on fear rather than encouraging her to trust that the Holy Spirit, as embodied by Joy, will continue to work in her life even during those moments when she’s scared of the future. Although she means well, Anxiety topples Riley’s emerging Sense of Self, making her question whether all she has previously learned about being a “good person” is actually true.
Joy, by contrast, reminds Riley that she is, indeed, a good person. Viewers have flocked to this movie because they, too, yearn for this simple reminder. Importantly, Joy reminds Riley of her Sense of Self not through scary hypothetical scenarios and catastrophes like Anxiety does. Instead, Joy reminds her through a fullness of the truth. Importantly, this fullness is not rose-colored or beigely optimistic. As in the Christian story, Joy is always mixed with suffering, or Sadness. The Inside Out films characterize Joy and Sadness as “best friend” emotions, paired together. Riley must learn from the brokenness of this world as much as she does from its beauty.
In the first Inside Out, Riley learns how hard it is to move while Inside Out 2 reveals how hard it is to change schools, undergo emotional and bodily transitions, and lose friends. At the same time, both films also show how wonderful it is to make new friends, nurture connections with old friends, and belly laugh with your parents in both rural Minnesota and urban San Francisco. We cannot have the Resurrection without the Fall. We cannot experience the fullness of Joy on this Earth without also experiencing the expanse of suffering and loss. With Joy comes Sadness. This is the Christian story, and it is the Inside Out story, as well.
That said, remember that Sadness always follows Joy’s lead. They are linked emotions, yet it’s Joy who is at the helm, set apart and distinct, because she is the spiritual one who looks outward and drives Riley upward to aspirational goodness in ways the others can’t. The emotions may work together, yet Joy drives them all.
At the end of Inside Out 2, Joy saves Riley from Anxiety in a seemingly counterintuitive manner: Joy rides a wave of negative memories that she’s been shielding Riley from, mixed with all of the happy memories that Anxiety was hiding from Riley, into “headquarters” (i.e., Riley’s mind) to rebuild Riley’s destroyed Sense of Self. This internal “flood of emotions” occurs at the same time Riley is penalized for being too rough in the camp’s final hockey scrimmage and is waiting to return to the ice.
As Riley breaks down in the penalty box, crying and panicking, I was moved to tears myself. I recalled how hard it was to make good moral choices as a middle-school girl when you’re also trying to navigate all that growing up entails, not to mention partaking in a hobby you love, obtaining high marks in school, and being a family member worth having around.
While Riley cries and waits in the penalty box, Anxiety relents, allowing Joy to retake the reins. Riley needs something stronger and more lasting to hang onto than this new, ephemeral, and chaotic emotion. Psalm 94:19 sprang to my mind as I watched this scene: “When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.” She needs consoling from Joy, from the fruit of the Holy Spirit who has been looking after her since she was a young child and who continues to offer solace as she grows into adolescence and is being formed into a “good” young woman.
And through Joy, Riley finds peace! Riley’s Sense of Self is restored: she recalls that she is “a good person.” Not a perfect one but a “good” one. She even asks forgiveness from her friends, and we witness an on-screen moment of reconciliation. Yet it is what happens after all this that represents the film’s shining moment: Riley sees the hockey rink with new eyes. For the first time, she doesn’t look at her friends or teammates. She’s not caught up in her head, either. Instead, she looks up, and she looks out. I reiterate, she doesn’t look inside, but out—and up.
Riley gazes at the sunlight streaming through the gym window, shimmering and glistening. Then—whoosh—we’re taken back inside Riley’s head. Sadness looks over to Joy and tells her these three words: “Riley needs you.”
Riley needs Joy.
She might experience the other emotions, but they, like Riley, all need Joy to function rightly. All of us humans with complex emotions need joy, regardless of our age. C. S. Lewis once quipped that “joy is the serious business of heaven.” That Inside Out 2 continues to perform so well suggests that joy is a serious business in the box office, too. Adults and children alike continue to seek Joy—in both the movie theater and life.
