If the filmmakers were sincere it truly didn't feel that way for me

Rating: 2/10 (20 December 2017)

Please be warned my review must contain a major spoiler, as the main reason I was so saddened by "Coco," when I went to the theater hoping for joyous laughs and a truly touching (and musical) celebration of Día de los Muertos (the impression I got from trailers, clips, and reviews I'd read prior to my seeing the film) is a critical plot point. Instead of joy, laughter, and earned tears I felt the filmmakers were far too calculated in their usage of an elderly woman's dementia and her slow decline toward death, so the supposedly "uplifting" ending instead came off as cruel and even heartless in manipulating the audience to tears (and likely tapping into very sad memories of relatives and friends who have passed from dementia and Alzheimer's). I also found the first third of the film almost completely unengaging, which truly surprised me, as Pixar is usually so careful with story and characters. This felt like a film that was coldly calculated to drain tear ducts rather than earning those tears from joyous creation and real caring for the characters onscreen. I hope I'm wrong about the filmmakers' intentions, but I came out of the theater thoroughly depressed and feeling, well, horribly manipulated. Dementia and Alzheimer's are incredibly cruel diseases, and their reality is very different than how it is portrayed at the end of "Coco." Either the filmmakers and scriptwriters have never actually closely experienced someone they loved being taken by these diseases or they are as heartless as it comes in using the gravity of these diseases as an easy way to make audiences cry. To those who loved the film and felt it earned its emotion: Of course I hope we will see our relatives and friends who have been diminished by memory diseases fully restored in the afterlife, but here it struck me as a cheap, quick, and easy shortcut trick of manipulation: The "triumph" of the final afterlife scene was either unintentionally cruel or coldly cruel, depending on the filmmakers' personal reasons for including same in the film. Be warned that if you have closely watched a loved one deteriorate and struggle with the fear and horror of losing their memory and faculties you, too, may find yourself angry at film's end, instead of joyous and uplifted. The only reason I gave this film two stars is that the animation is undeniably beautiful, and some of the songs tuneful and engaging--but that was it for me for any bit of enjoyment of the film.