Pixar’s films are always a little heartbreaking; some might argue a little sadistic. You go in, hypnotized by the color and the light and the humor and the humaneness of the enterprise, and the brilliant Pixar storytellers sneak an emotional gut punch into the first 20 minutes or the last 20 minutes or some 20 minute interlude in the middle (Up, Toy Story 3, WALL*E, Inside Out, and, yes, Finding Nemo). It’s no surprise, then, that the opening sequence of Finding Dory pushes every button of heartbreaking familial angst imaginable.

Finding Nemo was such a perfectly self-contained modern American fable that a sequel not only seemed unnecessary but unimaginable. Yet, with Finding Dory, Pixar completes a cinematic thought that we never realized (13 years after the fact) remained unfinished: how did Dory (voiced brilliantly by Ellen DeGeneres) survive for years before meeting Nemo and his papa Marlin (Albert Brooks plumbing every depth of twitchy neurosis), afflicted as she was with no short-term memory, no “street sense” (“sea sense”), and no direction (literally)? Who was her family and how did she “just keep swimming” with no discernible life skills?

Finding Dory is about as existential as Pixar gets – it’s a bit like an Ingmar Bergman flick encrusted in cotton candy and Happy Meal Toys. And that’s a good thing. We open with a baby Dory, utterly beloved by two parents who want nothing but the best for their child but who palpably fret over her ability to function. If you don’t get a bit verklempt as Dory struggles to understand her parents’ earnest teachings, apologizing profusely for her intrinsic challenges (challenges that deserve no apology), then you have the emotional IQ of a piece of coral. In those opening moments, Finding Dory devastatingly captures the pathos of child hoping to please parents and of parents loving unconditionally but fearing for their child’s safety in a world designed for callous cruelty. (A dynamic that becomes even more devastating in light of recent tragic events in America.)

Baby Dory and her doting parents become separated (not Bambi tragic, but darn close), and the rest of the film maps the now adult Dory’s hero’s quest (with the well-intentioned, if occasionally condescending, aid of pals Marlin and Nemo) to find her long-lost folks, following the events of Finding Nemo. The film veers toward the formulaic, borrowing a bit too heavily from its predecessor, as Dory meets cute with a number of sea creatures that suffer their own particular ailments and disabilities. Eventually, our merry band finds itself at a sea-life rehabilitation facility/zoo where Dory believes her parents reside. In typical Pixar fashion, there are a series of Rube Goldberg-esque harrowing caper and chase sequences as Dory and new buddy Hank (a misanthropic, crafty octopus, voiced with wry subtlety by Ed O’Neill) make their way through the park to locate her family and solve the mystery of her upbringing.

To Pixar’s credit, just as in Finding Nemo, this film takes its shots at human interference (noble and otherwise) in the natural order. The ingenuity and pluck demonstrated by the sea creatures in Finding Dory runs in stark contrast to human impulse to capture and display said creatures, whether for the animals’ own preservation or for people’s entertainment. There is a funny running bit where Sigourney Weaver (likely a nod to her role in the similarly themed Avatar) serves as the marine park’s announcer, repeating as the “voice of God” that the park’s mission is “rescue, rehabilitation, and release.” It’s a not-so-subtle jab at DisneyWorld competitor SeaWorld, made even more pointed when Dory observes, “As Sigourney Weaver tells us, we need to rescue, rehabilitate, and release,” shortly before setting every resident loose in the nearby cove. (This action also involves Hank the Octopus driving a semi-truck into the ocean … but it is a Pixar movie.)

Further, Finding Dory carries a powerful message about diversity. Our differences – and what some may view as our respective deficiencies, physical or mental or otherwise – can (and should) be our greatest strengths. And while the world may tell us, in overt and subtle ways, that we should “know our limitations,” we are our own worst enemies if we accept this fallacious direction as fact.

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Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital). In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the first book is currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language.