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a home + living guide for the post-college, pre-parenthood, quasi-adult generation

11.20.2003

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other new + recent LAZE features:
o Flick: Castle in the Sky
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: Charlotte Sometimes
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: Better Luck Tomorrow
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: Best of Everything
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: Peyton Place
o Books: Travelogues
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Breakfast Club
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: Singles
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The Fast Runner
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Insomnia
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Bowling for Columbine
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: Chicago
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: Rabbit-Proof Fence
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Devil's Playground
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Heaven
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Punch-Drunk Love
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Me Without You
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Ghost World
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flick pick | Finding Nemo 2003
Directed by: Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich
Written by: Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson
Starring: Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould, Willem Dafoe
Language: English
Look for it at the video store under: family, animation
Watch it when you’re in the mood for something: artsy-fartsy, fantastical, witty
The critic says: / 5 the rating system explained
Fun factor: /5 

Plot synopsis Clownfish Nemo lives a sheltered life on the Great Barrier Reef with his neurotic, devoted single father Marlin. It's Nemo's first day of school, and Marlin's usual protective tendencies are in overdrive. Uneasy about leaving his boy alone, Marlin follows Nemo to school. When he spies Nemo wandering off to the edge of the reef with some of his new friends, Marlin naturally freaks out. Angry at his father's lack of confidence in his ability to take care of himself, Nemo defiantly swims away from his dad, and up towards the surface. But when a scuba diver scoops up Nemo before he can return back to the reef, panic sets in for father and son alike. The diver returns to the surface with Nemo in plastic bag, and speeds away in a motorboat. The diver, as it turns out, is a dentist with a penchant for exotic fish, and Nemo soon finds himself sharing a fish tank in the dentist's office overlooking Sydney harbor. Marlin, meanwhile, finds that his need to find his son has provided the necessary courage to overcome his fears about straying from home. With the help of a forgetful blue tang named Dory, along with a host of other friends he meets along the way, Marlin sets off in search of Nemo -- and finds himself on an exciting epic of an adventure filled with danger and excitement alike. Meanwhile, Nemo has made a few new friends of his own, and has crafted his own plans to find his way back home.

Review By now, the plot is familiar to anyone who's seen a Pixar movie: a lovable loner finds himself on an unexpected adventure, and makes a voyage of self-discovery with the aid of a motley crew of hilarious sidekicks. And there's no denying that Finding Nemo's storyline bears a striking resemblance to Toy Story 2 in particular. But dismissing any of Pixar's movies as boring kid stuff simply because they follow a familiar template is totally missing the point: these movies work because the characters are irresistible and often downright inspired, the voice casting is pure genius, the dialogue is clever and eminently quotable, and the animation just takes your breath away. You're a hardened, cynical soul indeed if you can't laugh at Ellen DeGenere's adorably loopy memory-impaired Dory, the surf-Zen musings of a 150-year old sea turtle named Crush (hilariously voiced by writer/director Andrew Stanton himself), or a brief conversation between lobsters in which it's revealed that New England lobsters drop their R's just like the lobstermen who fish them. And the water -- god, that water is just beautifully, astoundingly watery… whether shimmering in the clear shallow waters of the reef, or murky with silt in the depths of a sunken ship, or refracting the light through a fishtank. Sure, at the core, there's nothing new about the idea of a father learning to give his son the freedom to grow up, but the folks at Pixar present this age-old story in a way that's just a joy to experience nonetheless.
—reviewed by Yee-Fan Sun

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