My honest thoughts on this two decade old movie.

My Former Hot Take - "Nemo is Mid." My Current Hot Take - "Forgive Me, Pixar." 🐠🙏

How a children's classic I despised for 22 years schooled me on trauma, parenting, and the beautiful, painful art of letting go. 🌊💔

I. The Confession Booth: A Cinematic Heretic Repents 🙏🤡

I come before you today not as a critic, but as a penitent. For twenty-two years, I have carried a critical sin—a judgment so profoundly wrong it feels less like an opinion and more like a failure of perception. I need to clear my conscience.

In the summer of 2003, swimming in the unearned confidence only a twelve-year-old can possess, I delivered my verdict from a theater seat sticky with soda: "Finding Nemo is bad." 🎬😒

I presented my case with the absolute certainty of a boy who had never known real loss, never felt the weight of responsibility, never loved anything more complex than the family dog. My evidence, to my juvenile mind, was irrefutable:

• "It's just fish... doing boring fish things in water!" 🐠💤
• "The plot moves with the urgency of a sedated manatee!" 📞🐌
• "Sharks with feelings? This is nature's epic killing machine hosting whatever this is!" 🦈🤔
• "The tank gang is a committee meeting for neurotic guppies!" 🐟📊
• "A CLOWN FISH? I'm supposed to care about the oceanic equivalent of a jester?" 🤡🚫

My cinematic diet was pure adrenaline—LASERS! EXPLOSIONS! HEROES WHO SOLVED PROBLEMS WITH THEIR FISTS! 💥🔫 This movie, with its quiet currents and emotional undertow, asked me for a currency I didn't possess: patience, empathy, a heart that could recognize its own reflection in an animated fish. It demanded emotional intelligence. And my bankrupt soul had nothing to spend. ❤️🚫

Then, two decades later, on a quiet evening adrift in my own sea of adult concerns, something shifted. The armor of my cynicism had developed cracks. Maybe it was the weight of years. Maybe it was the ghost of future responsibility, the dim understanding of what it means to fear for someone else's safety. Maybe, against all odds, a seed of wisdom had finally taken root.

I pressed play.

And within minutes, a devastating, beautiful truth washed over me, as cold and clear as the Pacific:

My twelve-year-old self wasn't a critic. He was an emotional illiterate, shouting critiques about a symphony he was deaf to. 🧠💀

II. The Opening: Three Minutes That Shattered My Soul ⚡😭

They don't ease you in. They don't warm you up. Pixar opens with the emotional equivalent of a SUBMARINE SLEDGEHAMMER. 🔨💥

The Before: Perfect, vibrant happiness. Marlin and Coral, their entire future mapped out in those tiny, perfect eggs. A home, a family, a life. 🏠❤️🐠

The During: The barracuda. Nature's brutal, indifferent editor. No warning. No mercy. Just survival of the fastest. ✂️💀

The After: The devastation. One damaged egg. One surviving partner. One clownfish forever changed by the three minutes that stole everything. 🥚💔

As a child, I saw: "Sad fish stuff" As an adult, I understood: This isn't backstory. This is diagnosis.

Marlin isn't "overprotective." He's a TRAUMA SURVIVOR. He didn't just lose his family—he WITNESSED A MASSACRE and emerged as the sole keeper of memory. 👁️💀

That opening isn't exposition. It's the GENETIC CODE for every single action, every fear, every desperate "just keep swimming" that follows. And my twelve-year-old self? He missed it COMPLETELY. 🤦‍♂️🚫

III. The Beautiful, Broken Dynamics 👨‍👦🌊

The First Day of School: A Chasm of Understanding 🎒🌊

The morning of the first day of school should be a universal rite of passage—a little nervousness, a lot of excitement. But in the shadow of the anemone, it becomes a psychological battleground.

Nemo: A vibrating coil of pure, unadulterated potential. To him, the ocean isn't a graveyard; it's a playground. School means friends, stories, a world beyond his father's fearful gaze. That "first day of school" photo? He's beaming. It’s the face of life straining at the bit. 😃🌊

Marlin: A living, breathing panic attack disguised as a clownfish. Where Nemo sees adventure, Marlin sees a minefield of memories. The kelp isn't kelp—it's the hiding place of the barracuda. The open water isn't freedom—it's the emptiness where his family vanished. He isn't just dropping his son off at school; he's delivering his last remaining treasure to the jaws of the world. 😱💦

As a kid, my allegiance was never in doubt. I was firmly in Nemo's corner, rolling my eyes from the theater seat. "God, dad, just let him LIVE! You're suffocating him!" I saw a nag. A buzzkill. A narrative obstacle to the fun. 🎯

As an adult, the scene is almost too painful to watch. This isn't simple overprotectiveness. This is the ghost of trauma, wearing a father's face. Every "be careful" is a silent prayer. Every hesitation is a flashback to a different, happier morning that ended in blood. It’s PTSD masquerading as love, a fortress of fear built around a fragile heart. 💔🎭

The "Lucky" Fin: A Scar They Both Carry 🦈💥

And then there's the fin. Nemo's "lucky" fin.

As a child, I saw a simple physical trait—a quirk to make the character design memorable.

I was a fool.

That undersized fin is not a disability. It is a tangible, swimming monument to Marlin's trauma. It is the living proof of what was almost lost. Every awkward paddle is a reminder of the violence that preceded his son's life. For Marlin, it’s not a "lucky" fin; it's a warning siren, a constant, visual trigger screaming, "He is vulnerable! The world is dangerous! You almost lost him before you even had him!"

The Boat & The Bind: A Tragedy of Good Intentions 🚤💔

Which brings us to the moment that, upon rewatch, felt less like a plot point and more like a Greek tragedy unfolding in the shallows.

The "butt" call. The dare. Nemo, swimming out to touch the boat.

As a child: "Yo! Doofas! You idiot! See? The dad was actually right!?"

As an adult, I saw the devastating, intricate knot being pulled tight.

Nemo touches the boat to prove he is NOT the fragile thing his father sees. He is captured BECAUSE he is trying to prove he is not fragile.

The very act of defiance, born from a desperate need to be seen as whole, validates his father's deepest, most paralyzing fear. It’s a perfect, heartbreaking paradox. Marlin’s fear created the environment that fostered the rebellion that confirmed the fear. The overprotectiveness, crafted from love and trauma, became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So, who is to blame?

Is it Nemo? The boy who just wanted to be seen as capable, who never witnessed the horror that shaped his father's world, and therefore couldn't possibly understand the weight of that fear?

Is it Marlin? The father who, having seen the universe's capacity for random cruelty, believed the only way to love was to control, to smother, to build a prison of safety and call it home?

The movie's genius is its refusal to give a simple answer. It presents you with two hearts, both breaking for understandable reasons, on a collision course engineered by a past that only one of them remembers. One is acting out of lived experience, the other out of a natural, human need for autonomy. Who is right? Who is wrong? The terrifying, beautiful truth the film offers is: they both are. ⛓️😭

It’s a lesson I was utterly unequipped to understand at twelve. I needed to live a little, to feel the terrifying weight of caring for something more than myself, to finally see that the deepest conflicts aren't between good and evil, but between one fractured, valid truth and another.

IV. The Odyssey - From Control to Surrender 🦈🤝

The Sharks Aren't Confused; They're in Recovery 🦈➡️☮️

My childhood bafflement: "Why are predators trying to be FRIENDS? This makes no sense!" 🤔

My adult revelation: They're in TWELVE-STEP RECOVERY for their very nature. They're trying to REBRAND from killers to pacifists.

Bruce's terrifying relapse when he smells Dory's blood? That's not a "plot point"—it's a BRUTALLY HONEST metaphor for how FRAGILE personal transformation can be. How the old self is always waiting in the shadows, sniffing for weakness. 💉💥

Crush the Turtle - Zen Master of the EAC 🐢🥾

This is where Marlin's entire worldview gets DROPKICKED by a surfer-dude turtle.

Marlin, desperate: "How do you know when they're ready?" Crush, infinitely wise: "You never really know. But when they know, you'll know." 🌊🙏 ? This isn't turtle wisdom—it's THERAPEUTIC TRUTH. You can't protect someone by SMOTHERING them. You can't ensure safety by building prisons. You have to TRUST them. And you have to trust LIFE itself. ❤️🌊

The Whale - The Ultimate Act of Faith 🐋🌀

Marlin clinging to the whale's baleen, certain he's about to be eaten. Dory speaking whale, communicating with the very force that could destroy them.

The lesson Marlin must learn: Stop FIGHTING the current. Let it take you. Trust that the universe might actually be on your side.

My kid self: "Cool whale! Big splash!" My adult self, tears streaming: "HOLY SHIT, THIS IS ABOUT SURRENDER AND FAITH IN SOMETHING BIGGER THAN YOURSELF" 🙏💫

V. The Reunion - Where Everything Flips 🔄💥

The Net Scene: From Panic to Poise 🎯🐠

I remember the feeling at twelve. The fishing net descends, trapping Dory and a school of fish. The music swells. And my adolescent brain, conditioned for spectacle, sighed. "A net? This is the climax? Where's the epic sea monster battle? The undersea volcano? Why are we worried about a bunch of fish getting caught? That's, like... what happens to fish!" I was waiting for a kaiju to show up, and the movie gave me... a logistical problem. 😒🌊

My eyes glazed over as Nemo explained his plan: "We have to tell all the fish to swim down together."

"Swim... down?" I thought, "That's it? That's the brilliant plan? Not chewing through the net? Not a clever distraction? Just... a synchronized swimming routine? This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen."

Two decades later, the same scene unspooled, and I felt my breath catch in my throat. I wasn't watching a cartoon escape plan. I was witnessing a sacred transference of trust.

Marlin, the father who once screamed "You can't swim!" into the abyss, now has to place his son's life—and the lives of others—in the hands of that same "can't." He has to trust Nemo's insane, counter-intuitive, beautifully simple plan. The man who built his identity on control must now relinquish it completely. He must become still. He must have faith.

The OVERPROTECTED becomes the PROTECTOR. The STUDENT becomes the TEACHER. The BROKEN becomes the HEALER. 👨‍🏫🐠

And the plan itself—"swim down"—is no longer dumb. It's profound. It’s not about brute force. It’s about unity. It’s about the power of collective action, of many small forces acting in concert to overcome a monolithic threat. The solution wasn't to fight the net, but to render it powerless through cooperation and a shared, downward thrust of will.

The Moment That Broke Me - Nemo Saves Dory 💫😭

But the true pivot, the moment that shattered the last of my cynical armor, came just before.

When Nemo, freed, sees Dory trapped again. He doesn't hesitate. He doesn't look to his father for permission. He simply says, "I know what to do," and swims back into the terror.

And we see it on Marlin's face—not just fear, but a dawning, awe-struck, terrifying realization. He sees the courage he thought he had to instill was there all along. He sees that the "lucky" fin wasn't a symbol of weakness, but of resilience. He sees that his son isn't the fragile thing he coddled. His son is BRAVE. His son is CAPABLE. His son was ALWAYS, inherently, capable.

My twelve-year-old self saw a boring solution to a boring problem. My adult self witnessed a father's entire worldview being dismantled and rebuilt in a single, silent, heart-stopping look. He finally saw his son not as a memory of what was almost lost, but as a promise of what could be.

VI. The Final Scene - The Backwards Law in Perfect Action 🔄🎯

The school run. The same coral archway. The same bubbling classmates. A moment so ordinary it should be forgettable. Instead, it is MIRACULOUS. It is the quietest, most profound revolution I have ever witnessed on screen. 🎒✨

• THEN: Nemo, electric with excitement. Marlin, a ghost at the gate, his fear a tangible forcefield. 😃🌊 / 😱💦
• NOW: Marlin, practically giddy, his voice light. "Go have an adventure!" Nemo, the one who hesitates, looking back with a tentative, "Bye, Dad..." 🥹 / 😟

This flip is the entire point. This is THE BACKWARDS LAW OF THE HUMAN HEART in its purest form.

By CLINGING, Marlin made the world seem like a monster. 🫂➡️👹 By LETTING GO, he made it an invitation. 👐➡️🎁 By TRUSTING, he didn't create recklessness; he fostered a healthy, earned caution. He transferred the weight of the world from his own terrified shoulders to his son's capable ones, and in doing so, made the burden feel light.

The prison of fear he built, brick by traumatic brick, didn't just vanish. It was transmuted. It became a playground of possibility. 🏛️➡️🎪

As a kid, I was right there with Nemo. That "Aww, do I have to?" was the anthem of my youth. I saw a buzzkill dad finally getting with the program. The end. Roll credits. 😒

As an adult, watching that father smile with genuine, unburdened joy as his son swims away... I wept. I witnessed a MIRACLE of unshackling. He went from a prisoner of his own past to an architect of his son's future. He didn't just drop his kid off at school; he launched him into a universe he now believed could be kind. 🥲💫

And it made my own mind spin with questions that never occurred to me at twelve:

How much of who we are is just a reflection of our parents' fears? 🪞😨 Are we, as children, simply acting out the dynamics our parents script for us, thinking it's our own free will? 👧📜 If my parents had held on tighter, would I have fought harder to break free? If they had treated the world not as a threat to be survived, but a gift to be explored... what would I have become? 🤔💭

The movie doesn't give me easy answers. And I love it for that. It just holds up a mirror, shimmering and beautiful and terrifyingly clear, showing the invisible strings between a parent's heart and a child's destiny.

It showed me that the most powerful inheritance isn't money or status. It's anxiety. Or it's courage. It's a legacy of fear, or a birthright of trust.

This isn't just character growth. This is PSYCHOLOGICAL ALCHEMY. 🔮✨ It's the agonizing, beautiful process of taking the base metal of trauma and, through the fire of love, forging it into the gold of wisdom. It's the moment a father stops being a shield and becomes a springboard.

And I, at thirty-something, I still don’t have no idea what life is. 🥲💖

VII. The Verdict - From Heretic to Believer 🙏✨

My twelve-year-old self was WRONG. Not just "a little off." Not just "different perspective."

CATEGORICALLY, EMBARRASSINGLY, BEAUTIFULLY WRONG. 🤡🚫

I didn't find Finding Nemo boring because it WAS boring. I found it boring because I WAS EMOTIONALLY AND INTELLECTUALLY UNEQUIPPED to understand it. 🧒🚫

The very things I hated became the things I now CHERISH:

• The "boring" tank gang? A SUPPORT SYSTEM of unlikely friends! 🐟🤝
• The "confusing" sharks? A lesson in THE DIFFICULTY OF CHANGE! 🦈🔄
• The "annoying" overprotective dad? A PORTRAIT OF LOVE FORGED IN THE FURNACE OF TRAUMA! 👨‍👦💔

This movie isn't about finding Nemo. It's about finding COURAGE when you're terrified. Finding TRUST when you've been betrayed by life. Finding YOURSELF after loss has shattered your identity. 🗺️❤️

The real journey wasn't across the ocean—it was across Marlin's shattered heart. And it took me twenty-two years, some lived experience, and a few scars of my own to finally appreciate the map. 🗺️💫

So this is my formal apology. To Pixar. To the clownfish. To everyone I ever argued with about this. To my younger self for his certainty about things he couldn't possibly understand.

My former hot take: "Nemo is hot trash." 🐠😒 My current hot take: "Forgive me, Pixar. I finally understand. And it's a masterpiece." 🙏✨

Found this cinematic redemption arc relatable? ❤️🎬 Follow the ongoing journey of bad takes becoming better ones on Twitter 🐦💫 @Allen_Fried More thoughts on life, media, and everything in between at FriedReads.com 🔥📖

Sometimes the classics become classics for a reason. Sometimes we're just too young, too dumb, or too protected by our own innocence to see it. Here's to growing up. Here's to the art that grows with us. And here's to finally understanding what our hearts were too small to hold the first time around. 🥂🎭

P.S. To the English teachers who forced Shakespeare down my throat: I'm evolving, but I'm not a saint. I still think that dude was a hack who got way too much mileage out of "thee," "thou," and characters who could've solved everything with a single, honest conversation. My redemption arc has its limits. 📚🤡