Finding Dory

Score:  **** out of ***** (A-)

Directed by Andrew Stanton
Starring Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, Hayden Rolence, Ed O'Neill
Running time: 97 minutes
Rated PG

Long Story Short:  Pixar turns to another sequel of one of their bigger hits in Finding Dory.  Focused, of course, on a different character this time, the film explores challenging themes both powerful for adults and relatable for children in a way that only Pixar can.  The adventure itself might be nothing new, but fresh, fun characters combine with the ambition and impact of the themes to make this a worthy viewing for all audiences.


Dory (DeGeneres) is a happy member of her ocean community, with friends such as Marlin (Brooks) and his son, Nemo (Rolence).  However, this cheery blue tang fish is also lonely in other ways, due to her lack of short-term memory and, relatedly, the mystery of her origin.  During a school lesson one day, Dory has flashbacks to bits of her childhood and she recalls her parents.  With just the smallest scraps of information to work with, she takes Marlin and Nemo along on a quest to find her original family.  Dory's focus propels the trio both into and out of danger in the open ocean before they manage to find the last place she saw her parents: a marine life reserve.

Dory soon finds herself separated from Marlin and Nemo but continues her search among the various areas of the reserve.  A mistrusting octopus (O'Neill) helps her along, in exchange for an item that will grant his most treasured wish.  Although the elder fish has doubts about Dory's chances of success, Marlin and Nemo still do everything they can to find her - and to help her discover the truth about her family.

Finding Dory features a lively cast of voice actors, both returning stars from Finding Nemo as well as newcomers.  Ellen DeGeneres's Dory takes the lead this time around, and both her character and voice acting provide a strong center for the film.  Dory is relentless in a sometimes tiresome yet gentle and endearing way, and she is brave yet often not mindful of risk.  Thus a balanced and intriguing hero, and DeGeneres conveys this all in a warm, deceptively simple performance.  Marlin and Nemo are essentially "along for the ride" and convey the audience's contrasting feelings about Dory: exasperation and worry, but also determination and caring.  Many of the new characters are quite interesting, starting with Ed O'Neill as Dory's helper Hank, an octopus.  He is a fairly typical crank-with-a-heart, but O'Neill is a great voice for that.  His Modern Family costar Ty Burrell joins him in a small part as a beluga whale and seemed to have great fun making echolocation howls.  Kaitlin Olson's friendly whale shark and Idris Elba's competitive sea lion round out the fun.

Finding Dory qualifies as a standard (therefore, successful) Pixar adventure, but it's the emotional theme that, even more than prior films, holds it all together.  Admittedly, I read this idea in another review before seeing the film, but Dory is a powerful Pixar representative of individuals with learning disabilities.  The film gives us flashbacks to Dory as a youngster raised by her parents, which bring on tears of bittersweet joy as easily as other Pixar films, by showing both the challenges and ultimately the love of those who may be different but are no less special.  When the action gets back to the main story, with Dory as an adult, it shows her as a unique individual with unique talents like each of her friends, rather than as someone with "problems" (which we all have) that need to be fixed.  It's not a completely new idea for this thoughtful company, but it extends Pixar's reach in this important yet too often (in the general culture) avoided area.  The adventure around this is fairly standard, but maybe that's a good thing so as to focus more on Dory and what her character represents.  That is, until things go a little nuts in the final act - but it's also a lot of fun, so it works out just fine.  As a last word, the short, unrelated animated feature that comes before every Pixar movie is quite fun, too (and also ocean-related).  The animation is stunning and adds that much more to the value of your ticket.

***

Not surprisingly, Finding Dory finds itself among the year's strongest films as Pixar films tend to do.  I wasn't sure I would see this in the theater since I don't remember Finding Nemo too well, but Dory stands by itself perfectly capably.  It's mildly disappointing to me when I hear Pixar is releasing a sequel - not because the originals aren't great, but because they're so good at generating yet more original ideas.  But the strong and important themes of Finding Dory make the character- and even story-based similarities to Nemo irrelevant.  I'm certain that audiences who have a more direct connection to Dory's themes in their own lives will discern this much more deeply and meaningfully than me, too.  No matter who you are, heed my broken-record advice:  Pixar makes the best quality films today, and Finding Dory keeps up those standards.



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