Elemental

I’m the exact right age to be a big Pixar fan. The first movie I remember seeing in theaters was Toy Story, and the second was A Bug’s Life (twice!). Finding Nemo was a huge conversation piece at school: a friend actually brought me their DVD copy in a Ziploc baggie and demanded I watch it over the weekend with the threat of a quiz on Monday. I still maintain that Up and Wall-E are the best I’ve seen, which is everything through Inside Out (except Cars 2), and a handful since. They often excelled at telling nuanced and (somewhat) complex stories on a variety of different topics. There was an actual meaningful message, be it about grief or loneliness or the fate of humanity, handled with care and layered such that you could engage with the narrative on different levels, which helped them to be beloved by all ages. And the approach to such relatively common subject matter was frequently uncommon, lending them an extra memorable element.

So while Elemental and all Pixar movies are made first and foremost with kids in mind, it’s expected they’ll work for adults without having to adjust expectations, fairly or not. And as recently as last year they demonstrated they’ve still got it with the excellent and entertaining Turning Red. And Elemental positions itself squarely in this mold by very quickly letting us know we’re going to be talking about the immigrant experience. Hell, the first scene is of Bernie (Ronnie del Carmen) and Cinder (Shila Ommi) being given their names by a customs officer who can’t understand their Firish.

The story picks up when their daughter Ember (Leah Lewis) is just about old enough to take over her father’s shop, which has become the cornerstone of a vibrant community of people from Fireland. The biggest problem is her quick and explosive temper, which on one fateful occasion leads to leaks throughout the building, drawing in (quite literally) a Water element city inspector named Wade (Mamoudou Athie). A few citations later, the future of the shop is in question, which Wade immediately sets about helping Ember to rectify. This leads to the mixing of their two worlds, a path strewn with many obstacles.

I often leave the humor as almost an afterthought, so let’s start with it this time. It’s pretty bad! Of course, humor is subjective, so your mileage may vary. But when so many of your jokes rely on lazy puns, what do you want me to say? Some of them are kinda cute, like the airball teams named the Windbreakers and the Cropdusters. But more often, we get “ash” substituted for “ass”, or adjustments on common phrases like “You splash it you buy it.” To say nothing of the many pun-tastic signs. all of which I’ve forgotten in the mere hours since seeing them. There are a couple of jokes that land (a comment about pruning comes to mind), but many of the attempts are just grating instead. And given how often they’re repeated, that’s an even bigger problem.

And it stands out even more given that the plot is incredibly basic and played out. Immigrant child is expected to follow in their parent’s footsteps (almost always the father’s), but wouldn’t you know it, they’re not very good at it, and may even have their own set of dreams and desires. To further heighten the tension, the child is hanging out with (and maybe falling for?) someone from the group which is seen to be oppressing their community. So they must hide their friendship/relationship, which was never going to work for long, leading to a big confrontation.

This isn’t a bad story structure, per se. It’s just disappointingly simple, so much so as to be trite. I never know quite how much a kid can really get from a story whose message likely already permeates their world: we can all get along, no matter how different we appear on the surface. Even people who don’t believe that (i.e. bigots) think they do, and just have a justification for why it’s okay to hate this group.

There’s also a halfhearted attempt at class commentary, with Water elements largely living in luxury apartments in Element City and Fire elements living in the more run down outskirts across the bridge. But the decision to avoid hitting it too hard comes off awkward, as we’re left with Bernie as the closest the movie has to a villain, whereas Wade’s family is all loving and pleasant. Yes, Bernie has more reason to be conceptually, but the movie fails to show that, meaning he just feels anti-Water without much footing.

Our main characters aren’t particularly well developed, either. We don’t really have the sense that Ember is at all unhappy with what’s expected of her until nearly two-thirds of the way through. Granted, some of that can be chalked up to the one good sentiment in the film, conveyed initially by Wade: “When I lose my temper I think it’s just me trying to tell myself something I’m not ready to hear”. We don’t learn it until Ember realizes it. Which sure, that’s reasonable. It just doesn’t play out very well, and feels like a bit of a rug pull. As for Wade, he seems pretty content with…well, everything. I couldn’t really tell you what he wants, even now.

Although the story wasn’t great, the world is pretty well fleshed out. Most notably, they make good use of all the elements of the…well, elements". Modes of travel, sports, ability to flow, emotions we associate with them, etc. Basic, sure, but still effective. That we’re dealing with the classical Greek elements is not lost on the filmmakers at any point. All manner of physical reactions and traits play into various scenes in fairly creative ways.

Part of it is the movie also looks pretty great, too. They stuck with their standard aesthetic throughout, which is a bit of a let-down after Turning Red experimented with some stylistic elements. But it works quite well, and all the particle effects they had to deal with came out very good. It’s nowhere near the same league as Across the Spider-Verse, or even Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, but it works.

Pixar is no longer putting out work that is as consistently incredible, this is true. But they also haven’t fallen apart. My generation will always have a special place in our heart for them, even when they fail to impress. Such is the case here. I can’t really recommend this movie to you, but if you have kids in your life, I’m sure they’ll love it. And there’s certainly worse dreck out there, cleaning up at the box office. At least it has a positive message and some thought behind it. It may be a low bar, but as it’s one that many movies fail to clear, it’s worth calling out.