What Is Ennui? Pixar's New Character in 'Inside Out 2'

Pixar's newest film, Inside Out 2, hit theaters Friday, and with it came a release of new on-screen emotions that are sure to be familiar to any parent.

The animated sequel follows the original "Inside Out," the 2015 hit that tells the story of Riley, an 11-year-old girl dealing with anthropomorphized version of her emotions. The new film finds Riley navigating the ups and downs of teenage life, and a host of new emotions, from "Anxiety" to "Ennui."

Ennui is a French word that translates to a kind of existential boredom or dissatisfaction with life. In the film, the character Ennui, which is aptly voiced by the French actress Adèle Exarchopoulos, is mostly disinterested in what is taking place around her and instead takes on a feeling of detachment or lethargy.

"Most people understand more commonly used terms like depression or boredom," Theresa Nguyen, chief research officer with Mental Health America, told Newsweek. "Human beings are not great at identifying emotions. When you ask somebody how they feel it's 'bad,' 'good.''

"It's really awesome that when Riley hits puberty, we are introducing the idea of complex emotions," Nguyen said.

"Ennui can't be bothered to raise her head, she's so bored," Jason Deamer, the fillm's production designer, explained in press materials provided by Pixar. "We ultimately went with this dark, desaturated, blue-grayish shade—if I had to give it a name, it'd be 'blah.'"

"We can feel ennui to varying degrees," Nguyen added. "It's a mixture of long-term boredom, listlessness, sadness." But it's not the same as depression.

Ashvin Sood, a psychiatrist based in Wisconsin, told Newsweek ennui is almost like a symptom with a greater cause behind it. It can be thought of like how a cough can be caused by a cold, pneumonia, asthma or any other variety of issues. Ennui is the effect on a person of their surroundings.

Ennui and screens

Nguyen has seen the term used most often within the field of addiction, but it's becoming more appropriate as a way to describe how young people are moving through the modern world.

"What's important with understanding the idea of ennui in youth is that we also live in a digital world," Nguyen said. "If your child has been exposed to early amounts of television or technology and if you combined that with predisposition to mental health conditions, we're starting to understand this is why people struggle with addiction issues."

In the movie, Ennui is always glued to her phone. That's exactly what Nguyen has seen with her own children, who seem to crash from the overstimulation after using a computer or watching TV. As any parent knows, the ennui in those cases often comes with a side of irritability.

Sood, the psychiatrist, said there have been recent studies on two- to four-year-olds that shows when they are exposed to big, flashy stimulations it can lead to tantrums.

"That's what ennui is," Nguyen said. "It's that listlessness, that anger that comes from wanting stimulation and not facing it."

Because of the unavoidability of screens in our society, many kids now have a higher threshold of what it takes to get excited or feel fulfilled, Sood said.

"When we don't have that, we get bored."

'Play it cool'

In the movie, Ennui arrives when Riley is trying to "play it cool" with other kids her age.

"It's that every-teen feeling that you don't care or don't want to deal," said Jason Hoffman, the film's story supervisor. "I could relate when I was a teenager...Ennui has that droopy noodle posture and she's committed to her technology."

Sood called this form of ennui more of a "defense mechanism" that tends to develop around the age of 11. In the film, Riley is 13.

"In those late preteens, early teenaged years, you can find young adults who are trying to find themselves," Sood said. "Kids that age only want to be accepted by their friends. That's most important at that age."

How to deal

For many parents, the fear is if they do not teach their children how to deal with ennui and work through it, then they will look for stimulation wherever it's available — from doomscrolling to pornography to drugs.

"And that's what you don't want," Nguyen said. "These are all new, modern issues that we're not necessarily prepared for."

Nguyen said a lot of the feelings of ennui are coupled with reduced play time and busy parents using screens as a way to placate their kids.

"I would have loved to have found a program where my children are off all day and have swimming class and some of the things that were affordable and available when we were children and are no longer affordable or available for parents today," Nguyen said.

Ennui isn't strictly a teenage emotion, though. Plenty of adults use video games, social media and other stimuli that we "don't get normally." The sensation feels different than doing something in the physical world, like having dinner with friends.

"Learn how to be bored. Be bored," Nguyen said. "This is the benchmark that I hold my children to, to recalibrate our brains in the modern world."