Tag: Finding dory

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Warning: Finding Dory spoilers ahead

I just got back from the theater and holy shit, it’s been a very long time since a saw an animate movie this good. It may not be that way for other people, but as a person who has had to deal with ADD all their life, to have a character express the same frustration and fear that I myself have experienced personally made me cry profusely as a 21 yr old surrounded by a bunch of young children.  

Because of my ADD I have:

 • been fired from my job bc i wasn’t learning fast enough and i forgot orders and customers and when I was working too frequently
   • almost made me crash my car because i was looking at a dog in a car that i was passing in an intersection
   • lose valuable things instantly bc i forget that it’s in my hand then unconsciously put it down places
• Wastes a lot of time bc i’ll go onto the internet intending to do the one productive thing and get distracted and end up scrolling Facebook or Tumblr for 3 hours before i remember what i went on the internet in the first place for

and probably a lot of other things I myself am not aware of..

Even as a 9 yr old going to see Finding Nemo, i came out of the movie theater going, “Im Dory! I’m Dory! I forget things too!” because, holy shit there’s a cartoon character like me who forgets everything. I’v used Dory to explain to people what I’m like at times, and she has been portrayed going through some of the same emotions that i experience bc of my mental illness (MI)

 like, in both movies she gets angry and frustrated when she couldn’t remember something, closing her eyes and rapping against her temples, and shit man i’v done the same exact gesture, i hate it when i can’t remember something important or I get yelled at when I forgot to complete something bc it left my head the second they told me to do it.

 I felt validated when I watched someone else express the same exasperation. I have developed a huge insecurity in myself because of this, and constantly worry how i will make a name for myself with the way I am, and this worry was voiced quite literally in the movie. 

Dory had to go down some pipes in an aquarium to get to where she believed her parents would be, and the directions given to her by the other characters were clear and easy for most people to remember, but for Dory, she originally believed she would need someone else to come with her to remember the way, saying “I can’t go it there on my own, what if I forget?” and as I sat there watching this i thought to myself, well man, how many times have I told myself the same thing. 

I have relied on people all my life to help keep me focused and often times I can’t get anything done if I don’t have someone keeping me on task. The writers had the characters, instead of invalidate her need by saying some cliche like, “oh, you’ll be fine.” recognize she had a problem and stay with her and yell directions to her through the pipes until she got to her destination. 

The development team as a whole has my thanks for to be honest, they did their damn research. the sense of fear and being lost was so well portrayed in the film, you don’t even realise it until you look back. they visually explained the feeling of lost memories by having dory be in murky, unclear water in almost every instance of her being confused. They had everything in her environment fuzzy and out of focus and that’s exactly what it feels like when I get disoriented. Nothing around you makes sense and you feel lost and alone. It’s incredible that they could explain this so subtly yet concisely

a few other important points:

• honestly i cried at the scene where she found her parents bc they never gave up on her and found a way to work with her MI to help her find them, by laying out shells that were easy to follow that lead back to their home, they worked with dory on her terms and that’s what lead to them reuniting in the end

• (im bolding this bc this is important) the focus was not on curing Dory of her MI, but adapting to and coping with life with it, which was so huge to me. At the end she forgets that they’re playing hide and seek but talks herself through it until she remembers (a technique which i will be using from now on aswell) and I think of all the potential neurodivergant kids in the audience watching this and using this method and omg do i cry 

• teaches people fish with disabilities are not helpless and can do things on their own (like when Nemo got himself out of the tube in the first film, and how Dory found her parents)

• The art, just, ugh, my little animator heart was so happy with the film in its entirety
• it was honest to god funny (the seals)
• it meant a lot to see a character like me living and functioning to their fullest despite inhibitions 

long story short, i give it a ten out of ten, i would wait another 12 years just to see this movie again

thank you, Pixar