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Ratatouille

I’ve mentioned before that Ratatouille is my favorite Pixar film. Picking my favorite Pixar film is, admittedly, pretty hard. Maybe the word to use is “best”: this is, in my opinion, the best Pixar film. My favorite, depending on the day, could be Toy Story, or WALL-E, or Ratatouille, but the best and most mature of the Pixar films to date remains Ratatouille, which begins with an outlandish concept (a rat wants to be a chef in Paris) and brings it to life with about as much realism as is possible, and provides a lead character who’s endearing and standoffish, almost at the same time. In no small way, Ratatouille is something akin to a fictional biography, as we see how Remy the rat came from the lowest and smallest of backgrounds to get his own restaurant, as unlikely and ridiculous as it may sound.

The film’s climactic scene is capped off by the reading of a review by the most evil and picky food critic out there, Anton Ego, but what makes the story that comes before that review work so well is Remy, as voiced by brilliant stand-up comedian Patton Oswalt. Oswalt’s performance is able to convey the excitement of discovering new food, the urge to make a difference in the world, and the frustration of having to do it with a human helper who becomes too arrogant to realize that the only reason he’s getting praise is because of the rodent pulling on his hair. Remy may not be as instantly lovable as Woody the cowboy or Mike Wazowski, but it’s that quality, his selfish nature, that makes him more human than most of the people working in his kitchen. Ratatouille may not be the movie your kids love (or it may well be), but it’s the most adult film Pixar’s ever made.

Finding Nemo

In many ways, the cheerfully prickly nature of Remy the rat can be seen in previous Pixar classic as Toy Story, but it’s in the 2003 underwater adventure Finding Nemo that we’re presented with a lead character who could so easily become the most obnoxious fish in the ocean. Marlin the clownfish, as voiced by comedian Albert Brooks, is a sad sack from the very beginning, and for good reason. In the film’s opening scene, Marlin’s wife and all but one of his babies are murdered by a hungry barracuda. From that point on, Marlin becomes fiercely overprotective of his son, Nemo, to his and his son’s detriment. Nemo tries to show his dad that he’s a grown fish, but ends up caught in a diver’s net, which leads Marlin on a desperate journey to save his son from the human world.

Of course, since it’s a Pixar movie, you and I both know how the movie is going to end. Much as the ship always sinks at the end of Titanic, Marlin finds Nemo at the end of the movie. What makes Finding Nemo such a great film isn’t just the father-son relationship, always a bit frayed but still filled with love. It’s the characterization of Marlin, who’s a good person, but so damaged from his past that he’s not able to loosen up; and then there’s Dory, the forgetful fish who ends up helping Marlin find his son, but in the most roundabout and least helpful way possible. As voiced by Ellen DeGeneres (who should probably thank Pixar once a week for rejuvenating her career, along with an HBO special around the same time), Dory is at once charming and maddening. Marlin and Dory are both frustrating yet charismatic leads, and it’s their friendship that makes Finding Nemo so unique and special.

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