Pixar’s Short ‘Bao’: Explores an Empty Nester’s Hunger for Companionship

This weekend, I was psyched to see The Incredibles 2, as the original is one of my favorite films and in my Pixar top three, alongside Ratatouille and Up. (I have yet to see Coco, because reasons, and as I wasn’t really a fan of Nemo, I’ve figured I’ll get around to watching Finding Dory when my preschooler makes me.) Anyway, I was happy to see what the Parrs have been up to for the last fourteen goddamn years when I settled into my seat, but I had no idea I’d be knocked on my ass by the preceding short, Bao. Now, if you live on the west coast, regardless of your own ethnicity, you’re probably familiar with bao, the tasty pork-filled steamed buns found at dim sum restaurants. Apparently bao also means “treasure.” In this fairytale written and directed by Chinese-Canadian Domee Shi, the first woman to direct a Pixar short film, a middle-aged woman is in her kitchen carefully making dumplings by hand. When they’re ready to eat, her husband wordlessly shovels his in and leaves for work. (It’s worth noting that we never see him return, as though he went out for the proverbial pack of smokes and forgot where he lived. He doesn’t reappear until the end of the film. More on that below.) It’s while the woman is eating her own bao that we hear the stark cry of a newborn. She looks into the basket on the table, and one of the dumplings has…a face. It strains a bit and out pops a body and limbs. It’s a bao baby.

She tends to it as a mother would tend to an infant, though understanda…