One Pixar motto over the years has been "for every laugh, a tear." But ahead of Finding Dory's release, I wonder: As the marine-life high jinks and slapstick unfold, is it unfair to expect audience waterworks, too?
After a recent screening of Dory, laughter seemed to be far more common than any residual weepiness. In his highly positive review of the film, the Wrap's Alonso Duralde wrote that Finding Dory "never quite hits that sweet spot of sadness." Emotional buttons are pushed, he judged, but we don't "ache."
Your mileage and tear ducts may vary during Dory's sea quest, of course, but such reactions do prompt the question: Must a Pixar film really make us ache to be considered great? Are we so accustomed to getting misty-eyed in Pixar movies that we feel a bit let down if we don't experience that profound twinge of painful loss?
And does that render Pixar a victim of its own remarkable success at plumbing our emotional depths?