While Disney animations are successful in moving their audiences, their subsidiary (子公司) Pixar is expert at creating tear-jerking movies as well.
At first sight, it is remarkable that these movies make us cry—the main characters are cartoon characters, in most cases not even human beings, who do things that could evidently never happen in the real world: toys come to life, monsters are to scare sleeping children, and helium-balloon-powered houses travel the world. How can a story so unrealistic make us care so much about their animated main characters?
The Pixar creators explained that their stories often reflect their own personal lives. Whereas the animated characters are far from real, their lives are relatable. The magical ingredient is the realistic portrayal of the complex emotional lives of the characters.
As Pixar director Pete Doctor explains: "What you're trying to do, when you tell a story, is to write about an event in your life that made you feel a particular way. And what you're trying to do, when you tell a story, is to get the audience to have that same feeling. While this is true for storytelling in general, it is especially important in Pixar movies, given that the basic plots of their movies cannot happen in real life."
What makes Pixar's highly unrealistic stories believable is the fact that they address problems that are central to our own lives. Pixar addresses real human matters such as family, friendship, death, loss, and the highly realistic emotions that such events evoke in our life.
The effect of the story thus depends on the human capacity to empathize with others: to recognize which emotions others experience, and to understand why others feel how they feel. The fact that empathy is learned and developed through life may well be the reason why these movies are entertaining for kids but rather devastating and heart-crushing for adults.
Every Pixar movie has the moment when we cry. We learn and feel with the characters through the realistic portrayal of their emotional lives. The stories appeal to our deepest emotions and, thus, make us cry. Because, essentially, Pixar stories are about us.