People always point to the first minutes of Up as an example of how brilliantly Pixar can blindside an audience, but it’s the opening of Finding Nemo which shows us how dark they’re really prepared to go.
Marlin and Coral are a beautifully written couple, her the long-suffering pragmatist balancing his goofy, loveable energy. They explore their new home and look to the future with their unhatched brace of children. They discuss names, they ponder which of them the children will warm to. They bicker, they flirt. They are clearly in love.
The believability of their relationship makes the entrance of the barracuda all the more chilling. Marlin’s sentence tails off and there’s an ice-cold beat of silence as Coral sees the barracuda watching them- that silence is all we need to understand what the barracuda’s presence means to the dreams the couple were discussing just seconds ago. There’s a wonderful, horrific second where we see Coral struggle with whether or not to attempt to protect her eggs at the expense of her own life- Marlin implores her not to, enough so that we understand how desperately he needs her to be safe. He’s knocked unconscious, long enough for his wife and all but one of his children to be slaughtered in the home that moments ago was filled with love and hope.
This tragedy informs the rest of the movie- Nemo’s “lucky fin” and his father’s new-found neuroses are both gifts from the barracuda. Much like Carl’s misanthropy in Up, Pixar’s tragedies have far-reaching implications for their characters, leaving them changed in ways which end up defining them.
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