- “Ennui. It's what you would call... the boredom.”
- ―Ennui describing what her name means
Ennui ("Boredom" in French) is a major character of Disney•Pixar's 2024 animated feature film Inside Out 2. She is one of the new emotions and the ninth inside Riley Andersen's mind.
Background[]
Official Description[]
- Bored and lethargic with a well-practiced eyeroll, Ennui adds the perfect amount of teenage apathy of Riley's personality, when she feels like it. The best part? She doesn't even have to get up off the couch - Ennui can work the console remotely using her mobile app. She's rarely interested enough to lift her own head. Ennui also serves an important function by building a little distance between Riley and her parents, which that's not fun if you're the parent.
Personality[]
Ennui, like her namesake, is the literal embodiment of any and all feelings of listlessness, lethargy and indifference. She is perpetually bored, apathetic, introverted, lazy and deadpan. She speaks in a very unamused and uninterested monotone manner when conversing with the other emotions. She is commonly seen being on her phone and laying on the couch, but is shown to be capable of movement when she feels like it. The way she inserts her commands on the console is also a reflection of her lack of motivation, with her having an app on her phone to do so. Ennui also finds annoyance in the quirks of other emotions, like Joy's fun name calling, Nostalgia reminiscing on recent events or Envy's enthusiasm on wanting something. She even shows in difference to Anxiety's plan to change Riley despite the fact she supports it, and gets annoyed by some of her decisions and squabbles, like waking Riley early to practice hockey and her freaking out about how to walk and what to say. She also is more level headed and more observant, such as telling Anxiety and Envy that the cool kids are leaving Riley behind due to their overthinking, and offering an obvious solution to keep Riley from walking awkwardly, like putting her hands in her pockets. This displays that she's more intelligent than she let's on and tends to display an "above it all" attitude towards the other Emotions with how she can be condescending at times
Despite her apathetic and introverted demeanor, she still cares very deeply about Riley, with her main job being to provide a protective mechanism to keep Riley away from or not focus on things that are not worth her time and energy, such as drama and to an extent, her parents. She also helps Riley in showing an apathetic look and, in this way, "keeping it cool" when conversing with Val and the cool kids, while also using sarcasm to hide what she really feels
There are also exceptions to how Ennui does not only show disinterest and lethargy as her sole personality. When the other emotions don't know how to do, Ennui can show initiative, like when Anxiety, Envy and Embarrassment panicked as they don't know how to avoid Riley from feeling humiliated by the older popular girls and Ennui moved all the way to the console to make Riley use sarcasm as a defense mechanism. Another example is when Riley's parents asked her about camp and the other emotions started arguing if they should or not tell them what really happened, with Ennui advancing and making Riley "keep it cool" and give a vague answer that was both true and hid the events. Her dependency on her phone can cause her to get quite alarmed and upset whenever she loses it, as shown when Sadness steals it to prevent Riley from peeking into the coach's journal to see what her thoughts about her on. Additionally, Ennui does have her moments where she does smile or show concern and/or compassion for not only Riley, but to the other emotions.
Physical appearance[]
Ennui bears a strong resemblance to Fear, with the slight difference that she has a longer, triangle-shaped nose and thick hair. She has periwinkle skin, cobalt blue eyes, and very long straight indigo hair with straight bangs above her eyes. Her wardrobe consists of a pale indigo sweater and sweatpants with dark indigo embroidery and gray socks with grayish purple polka dots.
Trivia[]
- According to the character herself in the first trailer, her name is the French word for "boredom", which is pronounced "on-wee". This could possibly be on the emphasis that her voice actress is French.
- Originally, Ennui was one of the 27 emotions considered to appear in the first film and intended to be a male emotion, as shown by storyboards in early versions of the film, but she was discarded to make the story less complex.[citation needed] However, when they brought Ennui, Envy, and Embarrassment back in the sequel, she was reinvented as a female emotion.
- As concept art shows, Ennui was originally going to be pink in the sequel. However, it was changed to indigo, a dull and inconspicuous color, which fits the emotion she embodies.
- Ennui using her phone to control the console without touching it is a reference to the emotion she embodies, where she doesn't even have the motivation to go to the console.
- Ennui's voice actor, Adèle Exarchopoulos, also voiced Ember Lumen in the European French dub of Pixar's previous film, Elemental and reprised her role in the Canadian and European French dubs of Inside Out 2.
- Ennui and Disgust are the only emotions whose shape designs are inspired by a food of some sorts; Disgust being based on broccoli, and Ennui being a limp noodle.
- Ennui is responsible for the creation of the Sar-chasm after she used sarcasm as a defense mechanism to protect Riley from feeling humiliated. According to her, she has been waiting her all life to do it.
Gallery[]
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