There is much, much more to this film than meets the eye.

Rating: 9/10 (30 January 2017)

Well, after reading a summary of this film that actually makes it sound really messed up, a part of me really wanted to see it. Mind you, I'm not actually surprised that somebody has come up with such a summary for Finding Nemo because it is a Disney production, and Disney is known for turning some rather dubious films, and stories, into movies that are actually quite suitable for kids – take Cinderella for example, or Hercules (he's certainly not one of those people that a respectable woman would bring home to meet her parents). However, unless you actually read this interpretation of the film you probably wouldn't realise how messed up it sounds.
Anyway, Finding Nemo is about how a man's wife and family are murdered by a serial killer, and then whose only son, who happens to be disabled, is kidnapped. So the man, with the help of a friend who happens to suffer from an intellectual disability, must track down the kidnappers and free his son. Oh, I probably should also mention that the last words that were said to him were words of hate due to the man's over protective nature.
Okay, while it might not be obvious at first, as I have mentioned, that explanation of the film does actually make sense, and in a way it is quite good because it doesn't paint the world as being a nice and happy place full of nice and healthy people. In fact, with two of the main characters having serious disabilities, and overcoming those disabilities, does have a lot to teach children. In a way, one shouldn't let their disabilities get them down, but rather see them as a defining characteristic. However, this film also has a message for parents, and that is that sooner or later we are going to have to let our children go.
To a parent (and I don't speak on experience here since I have never had children, nor have I ever been married), losing one's children can be heart wrenching. In fact even losing a single child is heart wrenching, to the point that marriages have been destroyed over the death of a child. In a way a child is our progeny, that which we leave for the world, that which becomes our legacy. As such I can understand why parents would get over protective, but the problem is that when we are over protective of our children, our children don't actually know how to survive in the real world. In a way I am even wondering whether the 'softness' of our society has come about through over protectiveness, where parent-teacher nights go from being a dread for the kid to being dreadful for the teacher. In a way society has moved from a point where a child's failure has not come about due to the child failing to study, but rather through the teacher's failure to give the student good grades.
There were a couple of other things I loved about this film, in particular the seagulls. I have to admit that they really portrayed seagulls very, very well – being incredibly possessive and incredibly single minded. Where as pretty much all of the other animals we encounter come across as intelligent (particularly the sharks who are attempting to become vegetarian) the seagulls can only say one thing 'mine'. In a way they are the most animalistic of the animals, existing only to eat, and fighting amongst themselves for every scrap of food. Living so close to the ocean I have a lot of experience with seagulls, and there is a reason that they are called flying rats – because they are.
While I have to admit that I have grown out of children's movies somewhat, some of them are actually quite fun, and Finding Nemo was definitely one of them. Mind you, I still can't get it out of my mind that I have actually seen this film before, namely because there is so much about it that is familiar.