Warning: this article contains mild plot spoilers

Inside Out 2 is billed as the ‘feel everything’ movie of 2024. Sitting next to my pre-teen son in the cinema, we prepared ourselves for an emotional rollercoaster of a film, and it did not disappoint.

The story begins by re-entering 13-year-old Riley’s mind as it’s on the brink of puberty. In the time elapsed since the first film, her personified emotions have learnt to work as a team, managed by even-handed Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler). That all changes though, when, in the middle of the night, an alarm and a demolition team signal the arrival of new emotions, including over-eager Anxiety (Maya Hawke), and internal chaos ensues.

The film has enjoyed record-breaking success on its opening weekend (globally, the highest of any animated film). What is it about the Inside Out universe that resonates with audiences? As this sequel follows the internal workings of teenage Riley (Kensington Tallman), how might it reflect (and shape) the next generation’s worldview?

Looking outside in

Joy has been hard at work developing Riley’s sense of self: it’s a glistening masterpiece, which has grown out of hundreds of roots that resonate with core beliefs like, ‘I am a good friend’ or ‘My parents are proud of me.’ 

Helping someone develop their identity feels like sacred ground. Terrifying, frankly! In these last weeks of my son’s primary schooling, part of me wants to cling onto these involved, simpler times. Like Joy, I often want to choose what gets a prize spot in my son’s belief system and what gets hurled to the back of his mind. In a poignant moment, when Joy’s positivity wanes, she gives voice to a prayer of desperation, not uncommon in parenthood: ‘Come on! Please! What am I missing?’  

As the story unfolded, I snuck the odd glance across at my son. During cringey new-teen-on-the-block moments, he instinctively put up his hood and hid behind a balled-up fist. At one of Riley’s anxiety-driven decisions, he nudged me and mouthed, ‘No!’ At other times, his face was a picture of delight, especially during the gloriously animated journey through the mind, which is comfortingly familiar from the first film but dotted with fresh puns to giggle at.  

This film offers parents and children a common language for labelling emotions and the point at which they have taken over the controls. Yet the parents in the film are bit parts. As the influence of friends grows, how can parents and other role models speak truth into young people’s lives at this formative stage? And how can we parent our own anxiety throughout?

Is anxiety the biggest issue?

Anxiety in all its forms can feel like an overwhelming presence in our society and in our own minds. (Anxiety is of course experienced on a wide spectrum and Disney-Pixar are only addressing the most common kind.) When, in Philippians 4:6, Paul tells us not to be anxious about anything, the original word used was merimnaó, meaning ‘over-anxious … distracted … to go to pieces because pulled apart in different directions’ (Biblehub.com).

Jesus endured the full weight of dread in the garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:41-44). He understands how it feels to desperately want to avoid something, but he let this emotion draw him closer to God and submitted to God’s will. It’s not about berating ourselves for feeling anxious – that’s a downward cyclone waiting to happen – it’s about letting go of our belief that we can fix it all ourselves and clinging on to God. Seeing the verse in context helps:

‘The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.’ (Philippians 4:5-6 ESV)

Our biggest problem is being pulled apart from God. All the other emotions represented in Inside Out 2, including Anxiety’s fellow-newbies – Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser) and Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), who is permanently both bored and horizontal – also have the potential to draw us away from God, but only if we let them control our sense of self rather than bringing them to him.

The evolving gospel of Disney & Pixar

The universal question of ‘Who am I?’ is so particularly live for young people that it’s no wonder Disney and Pixar keep returning to it. Whilst Disney’s ‘Love conquers all’ message has increasingly evolved into ‘Be true to yourself’, Pixar films explore identity through the lens of relationships. Inside Out 2 is a fascinating collaboration, as it creates an internal community from which to preach self-love.

In Riley’s external world, we hear the competing messages of adolescence: ‘I am whatever I want to be’ but also ‘I am what my friends think of me’. Young people are under increasing pressure to construct and assert their ‘true self’ to a tough crowd, at a stage when it feels much more like a work in progress than a work of art. In this arena, where it feels essential to achieve, impress and avoid embarrassment at all costs, Inside Out 2 applies the balm of unconditional love. It also reveals that behind these ‘I am’ statements is a (God-given) desire to be loved, to belong.

Growing up is at times a confusing, lonely and complex journey. It’s no wonder that Inside Out 2’s message of loving every single part of yourself is achingly appealing. But, whilst we are made in the image of a trinitarian God, we are not a community within ourselves. We can only answer the questions of identity in relation to others. And this is only truly good news if one of those relationships is with an unchanging God, who is never selfish and always loving.

The truly good news

When God saves us, we are given identity-refrains that rightfully belong to Jesus only. In Christ, I am chosen, holy and dearly loved (Colossians 3:12), I am a citizen of heaven (Philippians 3:20), I have a spirit of power, love and self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7) and so many more – and because these depend on the way Jesus lived his life, neither our sin or emotions can take them away from us, but we can grow in our experience of them.

Whilst culture has swung from one extreme to the other, from close-mindedness to permissiveness, the Bible is more nuanced. God loves us enough to not love the parts of us that create barbed lies, which arrest our true sense of self – sometimes like a lightning strike, sometimes like an insidious whisper. Interestingly these include messages like ‘I can fix it!’ or ‘I am a good person’. Whilst they sound nice, they aren’t always true so we can’t build securely on them.

God does not yank out our existing sense of self; instead, he begins the messy, time-consuming process of restoring it by his Spirit. Like a gardener, he nurtures what is already true, good and beautiful, he carefully uproots the lies and grounds us in Christ’s unimaginable love, so that we can grow into all the fullness of (relationship with) God (Ephesians 3:17-19).

How can we model this to the next generation?

What can we learn from Inside Out 2 about getting alongside young people? Let’s go back to Philippians to build a framework... Because of the Father’s unchanging love for us, Jesus’ death in our place and the Holy Spirit’s transformation, we can draw alongside someone by:

1. Setting an imperfect example 

Paul says, ‘Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own’ (3:12). We can ask God to help us let go of perfectionism, regrets and control, and take Jesus’ hand as we get alongside a young person. We can model drawing near to Jesus – whether we’re rejoicing or anxious (4:4-6), in need or in plenty (4:11-13), we can bring it all to him, secure in his love for us. We are works-in-progress, but that shows God at work.

2. Forgetting what’s been forgiven 

‘But one thing I do,’ Paul adds. ‘Forgetting what lies behind...’ (3:13). When we say sorry, that sin doesn’t roll around in the back of God’s mind, it is smashed against the cross – it doesn’t define us anymore. Jesus died to forgive us and he asks us to freely forgive our teens (and ourselves) too.

3. Projecting what’s been promised

Paul doesn’t stop there: ‘...and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus’ (3:13-14). Instead of using our imagination to project everything that could go wrong, we can meditate on what God promises is true, both now and in the future. When a young person shares with us what they truly feel, we can honour that, whilst helping them notice other things that are also true of their situation and offering words God says about them, himself and the hope ahead of them.

The next generation needs alongsiders! There are moments of encouragement, exhortation and equipping between the various emotions, but these scenes resonate in part because they are few and far between. As we consider the young people around us, let’s be using films like this to open conversations about the complexities of identity and growing up. And let’s be praying that God will continue forming their identities and using us as imperfect examples. As we bring this request to God, Philippians 4:7 promises: ‘And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.’