Now that enough time has gone by, allowing most people to have seen it, I’d like to be frank about Dory. This post will be riddled with spoilers, so if you haven’t seen it don’t venture any further.
The movie was excellence in animation. It was heartfelt and touching, It was clever and witty and adventurous. It was also a parent’s worst nightmare. You lose your child. I was in tears only 60 seconds into the movie. It was difficult to transition from the moment Dory is separated from her parents. I had to wipe the tears and remind myself – ‘this is a movie, just enjoy it.’
Parents worry all the time. From the moment I came home from the hospital with my twin girls (heck the worrying started way before that) I worried. As they started to walk, I worried. And as they started to toddle away from me, worry turned into panic. What if one of them walked away and I couldn’t find her? Watching the opening scene of Finding Dory brought me right back to that time when my girls were 2 years old. Toddlers toddle. Its what they do. They toddle off to explore their world. As much as I tried to restrain their urge to run off, once they realized they could run, they did. In the movie, it isn’t exactly Dory’s fault she gets lost. She gets caught up in the undertow. And just like that, she’s gone.
The parents, Jenny and Charlie, teach her how to find home. They have a special needs child. This is where I connected with the movie, I know all too well how to parent a special needs child. I’ve lived with worry for years because of a child that will always need reminding and guidance and constant teaching. The fear of losing her in a crowd and thinking she could not find her way home is horrifying. As much as I enjoyed watching the movie for all its silliness and antics, I still keep going back to that one event, when Dory is lost.
In Finding Nemo, Nemo is separated from Marlin for what we can assume is a short period time – maybe a month. In Finding Dory, the time period has been years. Can you imagine being separated from your child for years? Jenny and Charlie lost all those years when she was baby. I still can’t get over this. Finding Dory just might be the saddest Disney/Pixar movie of all time – possibly beating Bambi.
I took one of my twin girls to see it. I have twin 15 year old girls. Only one is able to watch a movie in a theater. She loved the characters, the story line and the ending. She didn’t see my point of view until I explained it to her. But why would she? She’s only 15. If the target audience for Finding Dory is the under 25 group, they are going to love it because of the story, the animation, the characters. Let me go on record to say it was a wonderful movie. Ellen DeGeneres is quite genius in her role. Pixar made a movie that turns the special needs child into the hero of her own story. I think that is wonderful and it should be celebrated. It’s just too hard as a parent of a special needs child to watch her getting lost. When I get the Blu-Ray edition, I’ll just have to fast forward over that part.
Letty has loved all things Disney since she was child. Her first visit to the world was back in 1978. Since then she has returned as a spring break college student; as a young woman traveling with her boyfriend (now husband); and her last visit as a wife and mother of twin girls. Every trip was magical. Keeping her Disney fix between visits, she immerses herself researching all she can about the Disney Company. She reads about resort operations, movie profits, cruise lines, theatrical productions, merchandise, and global operations. She looks forward to sharing her research about this company that has created magic for generations.
