It often happens that what makes a story beautiful is the simple truth behind it. Specifically, stories that are based on life events that are true and real are guaranteed to be packed with all of the emotions that we as humans feel. Even if we can’t personally relate to a specific story, we can get misty-eyed when we empathize with other people. When it comes to evocative storytelling, no one does it better than Pixar. They always leave us feeling things we never imagined we would feel and sometimes it only takes a few minutes. Their most recent short is “Float.”
“Float” is one of those stories that leave us feeling emotional after watching the challenges people have if they’re parenting a child who is deemed “different.” Realizing that these parents and children are working every day to embrace the things that make them unique and beautiful is moving to almost anyone who watches it. Like most of Pixar’s films, this one is above all an entertaining animated film, but the weight is pulled from the heaviest issues in life, like most of Pixar’s films are. After watching it, we are left here trying to process the very real fear and pain in our own “alternate” reality.
In the short, you see a dad and his baby boy, but before long, we viewers are let into a secret that changes how we see the whole scene. Soon, we realize that the little boy isn’t exactly like his other peers. Yes, he can crawl just like other babies his age, but this baby can also float. We may all dream of being lifted up high, but for this little boy’s father, it’s different because of how society acts when people are different. The father wonders what the neighbors will think, and how other kids react. He wonders how his perfect little boy will fare in a life that judges those who are different.
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The father tries everything he knows to make his little boy look like other children. First, he puts a rock in his backpack to keep him soaring up into the sky. The only spoken words in the entire film are “Why can’t you just be normal?” The story was written by Bobby Rubio, whose little boy, Alex, has autism. His wife gave him the idea to write his story through a comic because at first, the dad wasn’t handling his son’s diagnosis very well.
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Watch this moving film below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HAGuju_yKY
