260. Finding Nemo

Title: Finding Nemo

Genre: Animation. Adventure, Comedy

Year: 2003

Summary: Two ocellaris clownfish, Marlin and his wife Coral, are admiring their new home in the Great Barrier Reef and their clutch of eggs that are due to hatch. An Australian barracuda attacks them, leaving Marlin unconscious. Marlin wakes up to find Coral and all but one of her eggs missing. Marlin names this last egg Nemo, a name that Coral liked.

Nemo develops a small right fin due to damage to his egg from the barracuda attack, which limits his swimming ability. After Marlin embarrasses Nemo during a school field trip, Nemo sneaks away from the reef and is captured by scuba divers. As the boat departs, one of the divers accidentally knocks his diving mask overboard.

While attempting to save Nemo, Marlin meets Dory, a good-hearted and optimistic regal blue tang with short-term memory loss. Marlin and Dory encounter three sharks: Bruce, Anchor and Chum. Marlin discovers the diver's mask that was dropped from the boat and notices an address written on it. When he argues with Dory and accidentally gives her a nosebleed, the scent of blood causes Bruce to enter a feeding frenzy. Marlin and Dory escape from Bruce, but the mask falls into a trench in the deep sea. During a hazardous struggle with an anglerfish in the trench, Dory is able to read the address on the mask, located in Sydney, Australia. After receiving directions to Sydney from a large school of moonfish, Marlin and Dory encounter a bloom of jellyfish that nearly kill them; Marlin loses consciousness and wakes up to see a sea turtle named Crush, who takes Dory and him on the East Australian Current. Marlin shares the details of his journey with a group of young sea turtles; his story spreads across the ocean through word of mouth and finds Nemo in Sydney.

Nemo's captor - P. Sherman, a dentist - places him into a fish tank in his office on Sydney Harbour. Nemo meets a group of aquarium fish called the Tank Gang, led by a crafty and ambitious moorish idol named Gill, who also has a broken fin. The Tank Gang includes Bloat, a puffer fish; Bubbles, a yellow tang; Peach, an ochre starfish; Gurgle, a royal gramma; Jacques, a pacific cleaner shrimp; and Deb, a Blacktailed Humbug. The fish learn that Sherman plans to give Nemo to his niece, Darla, who once killed a fish by constantly shaking its bag. Gill gives Nemo a role in an escape plan, which involves jamming the tank's filter, forcing the dentist to remove the fish in order to clean it manually. The fish would be placed in plastic bags, at which point they could roll out the window and into the harbor. After a Brown Pelican named Nigel brings news of Marlin's adventure, Nemo jams the filter, but the dentist installs a new high-tech filter.

Upon leaving the East Australian Current, Marlin and Dory are engulfed by a blue whale. Inside the whale's mouth, Marlin tries to escape while Dory communicates with it. The whale carries them to Port Jackson and expels them through his blowhole. They are met by Nigel, who recognizes Marlin from the stories he has heard and takes them to the dentist's office. Darla has arrived and the dentist is giving Nemo to her. Nemo tries playing dead to save himself as Nigel arrives. Marlin sees Nemo and believes he is dead. Gill helps Nemo escape into a drain.

Marlin leaves Dory and begins to swim home. Dory loses her memory and becomes confused, but meets Nemo, who has reached the ocean. Dory's memory is restored after she reads the word "Sydney" on a nearby drainpipe; she guides Nemo to Marlin. After the two reunite, Dory is caught in a fishing net with a school of grouper. Nemo enters the net and directs the group to swim downward to break the net, enabling them to escape. After returning home, Nemo leaves for school once more and Marlin, who is no longer overprotective or doubtful of his son's safety, watches Nemo swim into the distance with Dory at his side.

At the dentist's office, the high-tech filter breaks down and the Tank Gang escape into the harbor. They realize that they are still confined to the bags of water that the dentist put them into when cleaning the tank.