I kid you not, when I went to the theater to see Inside Out 2 following its premiere on the 2024 movie schedule, I legit looked like Embarrassment pulling my sweatshirt hood all the way around my face to hide from cingeworthy moments.
Riley going through puberty hit incredibly close to home, and I couldn’t help but feel for her while also feeling that second-hand embarrassment as she tried to make sense of her emotions. However, that’s not a bad thing, in fact I think it made the movie even better and further proves why the Inside Out sequel is getting great reviews.
Why I Felt Second-Hand Embarrassment Watching Inside Out 2
When I saw Inside Out 2, I was with a good friend of mine, and it’s important to note that we are both women in our 20s. We’re both former teen girls, and the struggle Riley faced in this movie mirrored what I felt like growing up so closely.
The scenes that come to mind that gave me the worst second-hand embarrassment and had both my friend and I feeling like we needed to exit the theater, were when Riley was walking behind Val trying to figure out what to do with her hands and how to talk to her new friends and when she pretended not to like her favorite boyband to impress them.
Anxiety and Envy were trying to figure out what to do in her head, and it resulted in incredibly awkward lines of dialogue, her trying way too hard to impress them, and her saying things that weren’t true to herself.
That confusion Riley faced as she tried to balance what she thought was cool and what was true to her was painful to watch at times. However, it also is part of the reason why the movie is so good.
Why It Made The Movie Even Better
People love Inside Out in part because of how relatable it is, and how it provides imagery for what’s going on in our heads as we figure out emotions.
For me, seeing Anxiety and Envy overreact at the control board while Riley floundered in real life was maybe the most cringeworthy thing I’ve watched in a long time. However, that’s the point.
When I was a teen, the stakes of high school, friendship and being what people wanted me to be were high. It felt like life or death at times, and Inside Out 2 perfectly depicted it. While Riley’s struggles in this movie are really nothing big in the grand scheme of things, they are real, relatable and massive to her. Going through your teenage years can feel like a chaotic battle, and that’s what this movie was.
The stakes were so high because of how lost Riley felt, and we, the audience, got that through the embarrassment and anxiety we felt for her. All around, Inside Out 2 depicts what it’s like to be a teen with anxiety so well, and it’s painstakingly relatable, which is the highest compliment I can give it.
If you are looking to see Inside Out 2, the box office smash is in theaters now. To go back to where Riley’s story began, you can stream Inside Out with a Disney+ subscription.
