It’s Not My Fault She MADE Me Do It

In a fit of dark irony, the meals that were eaten before and after Finding Nemo were both sushi-based. I’m sorry Marlin! Really!

Man, what can you say about this movie?

Is it perfect? No.

Is it one of Pixar’s best? YES.

Get the obvious stuff out of the way, since it’s a CG film, that means that as technology advances, each successive Pixar film will ALWAYS visually surpass the last, limited only the palette of textures, colors and sensibilities of the artists that work on them, so there’s really no question that this was going to be the prettiest Pixar movie to date. EVERY new Pixar movie automatically holds that title. Of course, in my particular case, since my all time favorite color is aqua and since this movie is ocean based, that pretty much means from a color sense, this will probably always be my favorite film as the interplay of sunlight and ocean water was tranquil and, when combined with the beauty of the Great Barrier Reef of Oz, stunning. It’s a beautiful, beautiful looking movie and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

What really surprised me however, and what makes it my favorite Pixar movie to date, was how HUMAN it was.

Perhaps it’s beause of the subject matter. The Toy Story films and even Monsters Inc, didn’t have to “try” quite as hard to present the human condition, because toys, which are human creations, and monsters which are figments of human imagination, pretty much have a built into anthropomorphic quality; they’ll have two arms, two legs, humanoid faces and live in a familiar human environment. The challenge to the Pixar people was one that Disney has wrestled with for quite some time now, which was, “How do we bring human qualities to non-human characters?” And where Disney has usually succeeded with either pulling at out heart strings (Which Pixar did) or getting stellar actors for the voice acting (Which Pixar also did) they never brought so many human situations into the context of the animal kingdom to not only push the comedic value (I mean, this stuff is funny enough when humans do it, but when animals do it, it’s comedy genius) but that same mechanic reduces these human situations into something very basic and identifiable, making them somehow even more accessible and universal. That’s something Disney never did.

I won’t ruin the movie (Well, not too much anyway) but the whole idea of the three sharks as a stand in metaphor for recovering addicts was so insanely brilliant that I’m still breathless at the sheer ingenuity of it. I don’t know of many movies (Live or animated) that will surpass that moment of sublime comedy.

And then there’s the theme, and this is where the movie stands head and shoulders above almost all American animation and approaches the depth and artistic accomplishment of the best Japanese anime.

The plot itself is simple. Marlin, due to a horrible and traumatic experience in his past, has learned to fear the world and the inherent dangers it offers. This paranoia carries over to his only son, Nemo, and therein lies the well-intentioned but ultimately suffocating conflict of the movie. He loves his son so much and values his safety so much that he tries to spare him any experience of the outside world, even the positive ones, for fear that it will lead to harm. Marlin’s fear is projected onto his son and Nemo eventually rebels and pays the price.

But this isn’t a simple, “Listen to your parents or you’ll get in trouble” moral platitude. It’s far more complex, forgiving, honest and yes, even though it’s about fish, HUMAN story than many I’ve seen in years. The current crop of summer films are all maxed out with cylinders firing on the CG WOW factor scale, but the heart of this film about a father trying to rescue his only son is miles ahead of them in simple, unpretentious–and, a rarity in today’s film climate–sincere HEART. It’s almost like in every frame of animation rendered, you could feel the writer, director, and loads of animators all knew they had something special on their hands that they genuinely believed in, because, like all good art, it believes in its message, the message is an important one and it’s one we can all walk away from having learned something valuable that will be of use to us.

Little Nemo is not an unrepentant and spoiled brat for not listening to his father. Marlin is not an evil, repressive tyrant, and he has very real, legitimate reasons underlying his unreasoning fear of the dangers of the world. The themes of growing up, acknowledging that growth, of according autonomy and respect to those are finding their way in the world, of understanding that one cannot be shielded from all the bad in the world without also being denied the good… this is all very complex and heady stuff for a summer “kid’s flick,” and yet amongst the eye-popping CG candy, the adrenalin surging chases and almost non-stop hilarity of physical and verbal comedy, there is also a complex and compassionate exploration of these ideas and, like the very best lessons, most of it will probably slip under the radar and sink in subliminally where it will do the most good.

And I cannot say ENOUGH good things about the voice actors for this movie. Perhaps this is simply the Uber-Geek within, but I truly believe that whether these performances were “real” or for CG characters is moot, this has some of the best acting in a movie this year. Dory’s heart-breaking confession towards the end of the film about her memory condition pulled off the amazing trick of making me stop ogling the CG goodness and merely think, “Oh, GOD poor Dory…” a feeling that I haven’t had since Boo said good bye to Sully in Monster’s Inc.

No, I didn’t cry at this movie, it wasn’t that kind of film. Instead, I had that rare feeling I almost never carry away when a movie is over. I felt good.

The only real criticism I can level at the film is one from my own list of personal prejudices. I love character, and the characters of Marlin, Dory, Nemo, Gill and all the rest were wonderful. It disappointed me somewhat that there so, SO many chases in the movie. On the one hand, it is a movie about fish and so I suppose that a chase is the only convincing conflict to bring to such a film, and on the other hand, it is a summer movie and so action aplenty is always the order of the day, but just watching these characters be themselves, without necessarily any life threatening situations was itself, a joy to watch and I really would’ve loved to have seen more of that.

This is SO on my list of DVDs to pick up when it becomes affordable again. Right up there with all the region 1 Miyazaki flicks. Mm… Kiki’s Delivery Service…

GO. WATCH. NOW!