Pixar’s sequel to Finding Nemo arrived in United States theaters on June 17, 2016, after a premiere at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on June 8. Finding Dory was directed by Andrew Stanton and written by Stanton and Victoria Strouse. It runs 97 minutes. It is both a sequel and a spin-off of the 2003 film, and it is the rare follow-up that finds a reason to exist beyond the box office.
The reason is memory. Dory, a regal blue tang voiced by Ellen DeGeneres, has short-term memory loss. The first film used that as a joke. This one uses it as a condition, and the shift is what makes Finding Dory land.
Trailer, via Pixar.
Ellen DeGeneres and the Fish Who Forgets
The plot turns on a single recovered fact. One year after she met Marlin and Nemo, Dory lives next door to them in the Great Barrier Reef. One day she remembers her parents, Jenny and Charlie, and that they lived at the “Jewel of Morro Bay, California.” She sets out to find them, and Marlin and Nemo follow.
DeGeneres and Albert Brooks reprise their roles from 2003. Hayden Rolence takes over as Nemo, replacing Alexander Gould. Diane Keaton and Eugene Levy voice Jenny and Charlie. The film’s tagline is blunt about its own premise: “An unforgettable journey she probably won’t remember.”
That line could be a cheap joke. Stanton plays it straight. Dory’s forgetting is not a gag here; it is the engine of every scene, and the film treats her fear of it with real weight.
Hank the Octopus and the Marine Life Institute
Dory’s journey runs aground at the Marine Life Institute, where staff capture her and place her in quarantine. She is tagged, marking her for transfer to an aquarium in Cleveland. There she meets Hank, a brusque seven-limbed octopus voiced by Ed O’Neill who fears release back into the ocean. He agrees to help her find her parents in exchange for her tag.
The institute is the film’s best invention. It is a fictional place built on research trips to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Marine Mammal Center and the Vancouver Aquarium, and the detail shows in the exhibits, the pipes and the quarantine tanks. It is a made-up place rendered with care, not a generic backdrop.
Hank is the strongest new character. O’Neill plays him sour and tired, and his seven limbs are a running problem the film never lets you forget. The pairing works because Hank wants the opposite of what Dory wants: she wants to find her family, he wants to never go home.
Destiny, Bailey and the Pipes
In one exhibit, Dory meets Bailey, a beluga whale voiced by Ty Burrell, and Destiny, a nearsighted whale shark voiced by Kaitlin Olson. Destiny is a childhood friend. The two used to communicate through the pipes when they were children. Idris Elba and Dominic West voice Fluke and Rudder, a pair of California sea lions. A common loon named Becky helps Marlin and Nemo get inside the institute.
The film finally explains the separation. Dory was pulled away from her parents by an undertow current, into the pipes, and out into the ocean. It is a simple answer, and the film earns it by making Dory remember it in pieces rather than all at once.
The supporting cast is crowded. Kate McKinnon voices Wife Fish; Bill Hader voices Husband Fish, credited as Stan. Not every addition pays off. The sea lions are thin comic relief, and the film leans on them in places it should not.
Thomas Newman Returns to the Score
Thomas Newman returned to compose the score, and the music does quiet work the script sometimes cannot. The film’s emotional beats land because Newman does not oversell them.
The production history is its own story. Disney planned a Finding Nemo sequel as early as 2005, tasking its new studio Circle Seven Animation after disagreements with Pixar. That version never went into production, though a script was uploaded to the official Raindance Film Festival website that includes elements of the unmade script. Disney’s acquisition of Pixar in early 2006 led to the cancellation of Circle Seven’s version. A Pixar-made sequel was announced in April 2013 for a November 2015 release. The film came out in 2016.
That is a long road to a film about a fish who cannot hold onto a thought. The irony is not lost, and the result justifies the wait.
What Finding Dory Gets Right
My reading of the film is that memory is not identity. Dory forgets her parents, forgets her route, and remains entirely herself. The movie never argues she is broken. It argues she is resourceful in a way that people with better memories are not, because she has to be.
This is a real improvement on Finding Nemo, which was Marlin’s story. Finding Dory hands the film to the character who was previously a sidekick, and it does not soften her. She is still scattered, still impulsive, still prone to announcing plans she cannot finish. The film simply takes her seriously.
The weaknesses are structural. The middle act at the institute runs long, and the film introduces more characters than it can service. In my view Bailey and Destiny are set up as major players and then sidelined. The Cleveland transfer threat never carries the dread the film seems to want from it.
Finding Dory by the Numbers
- Runtime: 97 minutes
- Release date: June 17, 2016
- Premiere: June 8, 2016, El Capitan Theatre, Los Angeles
- Metacritic: 77/100
- Review score: 7.7/10
Finding Dory Release Schedule
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| April 2013 | Pixar sequel announced, set for November 2015 |
| June 8, 2016 | Premiere at the El Capitan Theatre, Los Angeles |
| June 17, 2016 | United States theatrical release |
Finding Dory is not the best film Pixar made in the 2010s. It is, however, the most honest one about a specific fear: that the people who love you will forget you, and that you will forget them first. Stanton and Strouse build the whole film around that fear and refuse to resolve it with a cure. Dory does not get better. She gets found.
That is the part worth keeping. The film’s 97 minutes move fast, the animation is precise, and DeGeneres carries more weight than the role ever asked of her before. The sea lions and the crowded supporting cast are noise. The memory is the signal.
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