Andrew Stanton’s Finding Nemo immediately preceded Pixar’s slightly more sophisticated collaborations with director Brad Bird, The Incredibles and Ratatouille. But despite being one of Pixar’s more overtly kid-oriented films, Andrew Stanton’s Finding Nemo is rife with anxiety and death. In the tradition of its spiritual ancestor Bambi, which also famously features a mother’s arbitrary murder in its opening moments, Finding Nemo is childlike without being childish.
If I was stranded in a dentist’s office aquarium, and I could take only one of Stanton’s Pixar movies with me, I’m afraid I wouldn’t select Finding Nemo. I found his follow-up WALL-E to be a more sophisticated film that relies less on dialog and celebrity personae.
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