No sooner does he make his point, than Marlin’s is made as well: a huge shadowy figure emerges between them, a scuba diver, who swoops little Nemo into a jar and boards the boat with him, while Marlin swims after them, panic-stricken over his son’s kidnapping.Īnd so the adventure begins: Marlin, the most scaredy-cat fish in the ocean, must become the bravest, facing all the dangers that he knows are out there, breaking all of the limits he set for himself and for Nemo, in order to rescue his son. “I hate you,” Nemo tells his father and then, in that familiar “Don’t-move-one-more-inch-or-you’re-in-big-trouble, mister” game, Nemo swims off defiantly to tap the boat with his fin. Marlin humiliates and infuriates Nemo, forbidding him to swim any farther. It is from this prohibition that the film’s central trauma emerges: Marlin catches Nemo and his friends playing a risky game of dare, seeing who can swim closest to a boat that’s drifting off in the distance. Or so Marlin keeps telling him and anyone else in earshot.
Marlin also tends to define Nemo by his handicap: one fin is smaller than the other, and so, he’s not a great swimmer. His #1 lesson has been simple but profound: “The ocean is dangerous.” Nemo understands his dad’s nervous nelly-ness stems from love nevertheless, he wants to be like all the other kids, going to school and exploring the sea on his own. Finding the lone remaining egg, Marlin swears, “I promise I’ll never let anything happen to you.”Ĭut to a few fish-years later and Marlin has delivered on his promise: he doesn’t let anything happen to Nemo, good or otherwise. You can’t really blame him: in the opening scene, his wife (Elizabeth Perkins) and the other few hundred eggs that would have been Nemo’s sibs are wiped out by a truly scary looking, sharp-toothed fish on the first day they’ve moved to new digs in the Great Barrier Reef. At 34, I was a smidge stressed at four, I probably would have been crying.įinding Nemo follows the “adventures” of clown fish and single father Marlin (Albert Brooks in all his neurotic glory), who is overprotective of his only son, Nemo (Alexander Gould). But while it’s about fathers and sons, love and limits, discoveries of the world and self, the film is also flush with traumas and tragedies: dead mommies and kidnappings, despair and impending doom. Like Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, and Monster’s Inc., it features amazing animation, great characters (and perfectly matched celeb voices), sharp wit, smart humor, and a story both timeless and timely. Finding Nemo is Pixar’s latest CGI marvel.
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