Alexander Gould makes Nemo's impatience with his father sound reasonable without making him difficult to care about. We rate that unsentimental performance, and would welcome more work that gives his characters reasons to resist being fussed over.
Fi1m perspective
Nemo wants some independence, and Alexander Gould makes his resistance to his father sound reasonable. In Andrew Stanton's Finding Nemo (2003), Albert Brooks gives Marlin the strained voice of a parent who cannot allow himself to relax. Gould has the less showy but essential task of making us understand why being loved like that might become a nuisance. We rate the performance because he lets Nemo object without losing our sympathy. A child in a family film is allowed to be something other than grateful.
We were moved by Marlin's fear for Nemo, because Brooks keeps the affection audible beneath the fuss. Gould's resistance stops that affection from settling every disagreement in the father's favour. The film's parenting advice can become insistent, and there are points when we would rather it trusted these two voices to make themselves understood. What works is the sympathy available to both father and son, without requiring either to be entirely easy company.
The move to Weeds (2005–2012) gave him a substantially longer stretch of work, playing Shane Botwin across all eight seasons alongside Mary-Louise Parker. Shane is an observant, complicated youngster, a different proposition from the young animated characters Gould also voiced. His title voice role in Bambi II (2006) belongs to that latter strand. The television work deserves attention in any account of him, though Finding Nemo remains our clearest reason to recommend his acting.
Gould took time away after Weeds and has since made occasional voice appearances. His voice had matured by Finding Dory (2016), so he did not reprise Nemo, returning instead for the small part of Passenger Carl. A cameo offers little evidence on which to judge what comes next, and we would be wary of expecting an adult actor to reproduce his childhood work. Give Finding Nemo an evening, but listen to the son as carefully as the father.
Biography
Alexander Gould is an American actor. He voiced the title character in the Pixar animated film Finding Nemo (2003) and appeared as a passenger in its sequel Finding Dory (2016).
Gould began acting at the age of two and is also known for his role as Shane Botwin in the Showtime series Weeds (2005–2012), for which he received Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. He has made guest appearances in series including Malcolm in the Middle (2000), Supernatural (2005) and Criminal Minds (2005), and provided the voice of Bambi in Bambi II (2006). He attended Brandeis University.
