‘Inside Out 2’ in the chaotic mind of a teenager

“While preparing the film, I went through old personal photo albums and noticed that when he was five, he always had a big smile on his face,” he recalls. ‘Inside Out 2’ directed by Kelsey Mann, is a veteran of Pixar who once worked on the animation teams of productions such as ‘Monsters University’ (2013), ‘Arlo’s Journey’ (2015) and ‘Onward’ (2020). “But later in photos taken when I was 13, I was seen with a completely different expression. The smile had disappeared and I looked clearly uncomfortable. We have all been through adolescence and can remember how self-critical, insecure and resentful we became when we reached puberty.; “That’s the process I wanted to explore with this film.” So far, the public has responded overwhelmingly positively to this approach.

‘Del Revés 2’ opens in Spanish cinemas this Wednesday, five days after opening in several countries, including the US and Great Britain, and has a one-weekend release only a record collectionalmost $300 million.

This isn’t the first Pixar movie to tell the story of a teenager caught up in new emotions he can’t understand. Studios released in 2022 ‘Red’ is the story of a girl who turns into a giant panda every time she gets excited or nervous. “The main difference is that in that film, director Domee Shi depicts an autobiographical relationship between mother and daughter,” Mann says. “We become more focused on that self-awareness that invades us once we leave adolescence behind, that transforms us into something. Beings who are extremely concerned about what others think of us need their approval. And this is something that the pandemic has highlighted even more. “When I started working on the film at the beginning of 2020, my son was only 14 and my daughter was 13, so I had the opportunity to check it out.”

Also, unlike ‘Red’, ‘Del Vés 2’ A film directed and produced by men. “She was aware from the beginning that if she wanted to tell a story about teenage girls, she needed to get advice from teenage girls,” Mann says. “So we formed a group of nine girls, aged between 13 and 16, who helped us through much of the production process and pointed out things we were doing wrong. Her input was especially valuable in the dialogue; whenever they detected an inappropriate expression, they would tell us the same thing: ‘No young girl talks like that!’”

Of course, the current teenage experience is largely shaped by the use of social networks, and so it’s notable that much of the new film’s plot adventure stays away from them. Riley and his friends spend a weekend at hockey camp, where their cell phones are conveniently confiscated.. “This was a deliberate decision on our part,” says the director. “At Pixar, we always try to make movies that don’t go out of style, that don’t get old. The problem with phones, and technology in general, is that they are constantly updated and the things you portray in your movie quickly become obsolete. “We want the public to see our films as many times as possible, and no one wants to watch a stale film again.”

It’s a similar argument to the one Mann put forward a few days ago to explain why they made the controversial decision to leave out the core emotions of ‘Inside Out 2’ during adolescence. Blame, just because “watching them wouldn’t be fun” and would therefore deter viewers from watching the film more than once.

This isn’t the only controversy predicting ‘Del Revés 2”s arrival in theaters. Months ago, many social media users were outraged when they assumed, judging by its trailer, that the film had turned its protagonist into something. a ‘weird’ character; At the same time, many people reacted similarly because they assumed Riley would be a heterosexual character instead.

“To be honest, his sexuality didn’t seem to be a priority for us,” Mann responds. “The person Riley must learn to love is herself, the very person she finds most difficult to love. I think it’s nice to make a movie that helps young people understand that, especially after everything they’ve been through in the last few years. “A movie like this would have been good for me when I was that age.”