Tears Flow As Memories Are Unlocked

It’s a given that Pixar has cracked the code for calibrating the perfect feeling-all-the-feels moment: That instant where the narrative taps into its audience’s deepest emotions and reduces it to tears. It’s there in “Toy Story 3.” “Up,” of course. “Inside Out.”

“Coco” is no different — although there’s something uniquely effective about how it gets you to that place.

While there have been songs in Pixar movies before “Coco,” musical numbers have always been much more integral to the Disney canon. And within the last 30 years, many of those Disney movies took advantage of a Broadway staple: the reprise.

In movies like “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and, more recently, “Moana,” the reprise is a return to the melody of an earlier song, used as a declarative statement reinforcing the protagonist’s will in their journey.

“Watch and you’ll see, someday I’ll be part of your world,” Ariel belts to an aloof Prince Eric.

“Coco,” Pixar’s most musical feature to date, offers a twist on the reprise. Rather than pump you up for the big adventure, it’ll bring on all the tears — in the best way possible.

The first time we hear “Remember Me,” while watching “Coco,” it’s performed as an up-tempo romantic tune by the famous singer Ernesto de la Cruz.

But when we hear it again later, it takes on a new form: a lullaby by Coco’s father, Héctor, written for baby Coco.

Only when Miguel, Coco’s great-grandson, travels to the Land of the Dead does he discover the true history of “Remember Me”: Ernesto, upset that Héctor planned to abandon his career and return to his family, poisoned his friend and stole Héctor’s songs to seek fame.

In the movie’s final act, Miguel returns to the living and hopes to restore Coco’s memories of Héctor. The song returns again.

He pleads with her: “I saw your papá!”

Hunched over in her wheelchair, she seems to stare off into nowhere.

Miguel again: What about papá's guitar?

The family photo?

Nothing.

But then — the guitar again.

One last thread of hope.

“Mama Coco, your papá — he wanted you to have this.”

Miguel begins to strum the guitar and perform the song Coco’s papá wrote for her when she was a girl. “Remember me,” he sings in a near-whisper, through tears. “Though I have to say goodbye.”

Cut to a close-up of Coco’s hand, draped on the arm of her wheelchair, twitching ever so slightly. The camera pans up to her face, and in that moment, the tiniest flicker appears in her downward cast eyes.

As Miguel continues to sing, the elderly Coco’s face begins to soften and come alive. She shuts her eyes for a moment, then joins in, her smile widening.

Miguel’s face brightens and they lock eyes. Abuelita, Coco’s daughter, is drawn in, too, her own eyes welling with tears. A close-up on Coco’s face. She’s absolutely glowing. She remembers.

As I take in “Remember Me” this last time, I recall what that song means to Coco and Héctor, and what it now means to Miguel, who, like myself, gains a new understanding of its lyrics.

While the connection between the song and its characters is very specific to the story, there’s an element of universality that links it to my own experiences as a viewer — the passage of time, loss, family.

And then, through my tears, I think of the memories I have of my own loved ones, and how precious, and precarious, they are.

The repeated occurrences of “Remember Me” are not just a clever play on the movie’s themes of recollection and family, or, as in its Disney predecessors, the rallying cry of a protagonist ready to take on the world. “Remember Me” is a gut punch that fittingly lingers long after it’s gone.