FINDING DORY directed by Andrew Stanton, written by Stanton, with the voices of Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, Hayden Rolence, Ed O’Neill and Kaitlin Olson. A Walt Disney Pictures release. 97 minutes. Opens Friday (June 17). See listing. Rating: NNNNN
I admit I was skeptical when Andrew Stanton announced a sequel to 2003’s Finding Nemo after watching his live-action dream project John Carter die of neglect at the box office in 2012.
It seemed like the veteran Pixar director was running home for a safe gig. And besides, did Finding Nemo really need a sequel? Wasn’t this just a capitulation to Disney’s prime directive, “Make More Of Whatever People Already Like”?
In short: not at all. Finding Dory will give its audience what it wants, reuniting original voice actors Ellen DeGeneres and Albert Brooks for another aquatic adventure. But it’s how Stanton goes about it that makes Finding Dory different and genuinely daring – and one of the best things Pixar’s ever produced.
If Finding Nemo hinted at a grown-up subtext about parenthood and loss, Finding Dory goes all in. Stanton shifts perspectives from Brooks’s fearful, judgmental clown fish, Marlin, to DeGeneres’s kind-hearted but unquestionably challenged blue tang, Dory, whose memory impairment is no longer played for laughs but seen as a lifelong disability. Yes, she lives in the moment, but that’s because she barely remembers losing her family. (The movie opens with a prologue even more traumatic than its progenitor’s. Trust me on this.)
And when an unexpected flash of memory sends Dory off on a quest across the Pacific to find her parents, Marlin and Nemo (now voiced by child actor Hayden Rolence) accompany their friend to a marine life sanctuary on the California coast, where they’re immediately separated and forced to rely on new, weird friends to find one another again.
Stanton and co-writers Victoria Strouse and Bob Peterson mirror the events of the first movie in a way that doesn’t feel like a straight rehash, populating the narrative with fun supporting characters and no end of surprises – including the delightful casting of The Wire arch-enemies -Idris Elba and Dominic West as best pals.
But even as the laughs keep coming, Stanton reveals the masterful allegory at his movie’s core: if Finding Nemo was about a parent’s concern for a child with special needs, Finding Dory is about being that child and learning to survive in a world that’s not made with your specific requirements in mind.
It’s remarkable that he’d even attempt it, and even more remarkable that it would turn out as well as it has. Mr. Stanton, I’ll never doubt you again.
normw@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner
