Jonah Naplan   June 18, 2023

I’ve seen much better Pixar movies than “Elemental,” but I’ve also seen much, much worse. This one is not perfect. It’s incredibly ambitious, yet still inherently derived from the familiar story beats that Pixar has been mastering in all the time their films have hit the big screen. Sometimes it tries to say too much, sometimes it tries to say too little. But still delightful, charming, and Pixar’s sweet attempt at a rom-com, “Elemental” is memorable because it takes the risk to be bold and doesn’t seem wary about the choice either.

Director Peter Sohn’s last Pixar film, “Lightyear,” I found to be good fun but overall forgettable, and his feature before that, “The Good Dinosaur,” I regard as one of the dullest and least remarkable Pixar films currently on the slate. The auteur bar couldn’t be a whole lot lower, nor could the current state of both Disney and Pixar animation as a whole. The other projects of recent years have not quite hit a “Cars 2” level of bad, but I hesitate to say that they are on completely different tracks.

In the animation studios’ post-Covid lineup alone, they have amassed a slew of incendiary-enough releases, none of which sit on the same level as “Inside Out” or “Up” or “Toy Story 3” or—which remains my personal favorite—“Coco.” 2020’s Christmas release, “Soul,” has come the closest, but all the rest—“Luca,” “Turning Red,” “Lightyear,” “Raya and the Last Dragon,” “Encanto,”—have tried and failed to reach those same heights.

In my review of “Strange World”—another such film that belongs on the above list—I discussed these same concerns. I wrote, “There really is nothing blatantly bad about ‘Strange World,’ it’s just frustratingly bland, and often heartbreakingly unfunny. I say ‘heartbreakingly,’ because I remember a time when I was younger, when the newest Disney animated movie would always make me laugh and entertain little Jonah for a good hour and forty minutes. That’s not so much the case anymore.” I go on to give some examples of what I consider to be quality animation, but recently—and I mean literally in the last two weeks—that bar has been raised exponentially higher with the release of the awe-struckingly animated “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” a film that claims competition not just with this movie, but also the other big film released this weekend, “The Flash.”

With all this weight to prove itself pressing tirelessly down on its poor computer-generated shoulders, “Elemental” is surprisingly nimble on its feet, successfully conveying every intense emotion and moral it wants to portray and then some. Navigating themes such as racism, discrimination, immigration, expectation, appropriation and most of all the other “tations,” about eight times out of ten, “Elemental” is allowed to fly. I don’t know how the upcoming projects, namely “Wish” and “Elio,” will turn out, but as of right now, I’m proud to announce that “Elemental” breaks the recent animation curse. And I will try my best to dissect this movie’s secret.

For one, the plot is simultaneously simple-minded and heavily fortified. In a very similar vein as “Zootopia,” “Elemental” imagines and purposes a world called Element City as its backdrop, a wide-reaching, inclusive metropolis that takes clear inspiration from the most urban regions of New York. The wonder incoming residents feel when crossing the border into the city for the first time calls to mind stories we hear about foreign immigrants approaching Ellis Island, and letting the potential of their new life wash over them, as they fall dazed into the shadow of Lady Liberty.

Our femme fatale is named Ember Lumen (Leah Lewis), a headstrong and spirited character, who is also a walking flame of fire. Her parents, Bernie (Ronnie del Carmen) and Cinder (Shila Ommi), emigrated into the city from Fireland before Ember was born, bringing spicy food and traditional culture along with them. It took a while before her father was given his big break, and opened his own bodega shop in the heat of the city’s suburbs, but such is the environment Ember grew up in, making her way through the motions of helping out around the store, until reaching the ranks of possessing the business herself.

In a metaphorical sense, Pixar is saying a lot with this exposition. Element City is a home to everyone—fire, water, air, and tree people—but those who are flammable represent the middle to lower class citizens of society, having to make their own way in a harsh world. All of the fire people have the same reddish orange skin tone, but their variety of accents suggest an entire United Nations-worth of ethnicities. The fire people are discriminated against, not allowed into certain public areas, and treated differently than others in a social sense. The main opponents they face are the pristinely blue water people, symbolizing white privilege and the highest class. These two warring clans butt heads in ways that compliment the clever imagery Pixar uses to show basic chemical reactions and such, but it also acts as a neat way to help kids better understand these real world issues in terms that are a little easier to digest.

It’s no surprise that on the day of a “Red Dot Sale” at the Lumen bodega, Ember loses her temper by the means of the idiotic and tone deaf customers, and retreats, letting her anger out with such force that pipes burst, flushing Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie) into her peripheral. The humble Wade is a public inspector who’s been recently investigating the city’s leaking canal system, that’s been affecting the city as a whole and individual property, including Bernie’s store. Wade reluctantly forces himself to write up the family business with 30 apparent citations, leaving Ember to desperately spring onto his tail, trying with all her might to keep the “Open” sign on, and her father’s dreams alive.

After pleading her case, the sympathetic Wade immediately takes her side, joining her on her journey to rekindle the aspirations she only thinks she embraces. Sure, the basic beats of their relationship are a bit cliqued. Call it an enemies to lovers arc. Ember is made of fire, Wade is made of water. The logic we hear time and time again: Elements don’t mix. Elements don’t mix. Elements don’t mix. They start off clinging to each others' last nerve, only joining forces because they have to. But subtle moments kickstart something special. Teamwork that showcases Ember’s skill at molding glass with her bare hands in order to repair a dam is a big one. And a special moment of encouragement at an “airball” game will stick in my head for a long time. It almost made me cry. As the two spend more time with one another, a sweet romance begins to manifest.

Defying the norms of what they’ve been told is socially, and, in a sense, religiously acceptable, Ember and Wade see each other in secret. Their romance is the best part of the movie, drawing credit to the fine work from the two voice actors who make this relationship thorough and believable. And they look like a cute couple. Ember is animated with a spiky vibrance, while Wade is rendered with cool, transparent flushes of aqua. All of Pixar’s animation is luscious and beautiful—the Element City landscapes are jam-packed with creative joy, bursting with life in every inch of the colorful frame—but it is the motion capture of the individual characters that is most remarkable. The little details, like the way Wade’s skin starts to bubble with incoming steam when Ember gets too close, are the things I consider innovative, even when the film doesn’t directly call attention to them.

The storytelling itself is not the film’s strongest point. We know that somewhere down the line, Ember and Wade will have a pivotal argument, inciting a brief separation before a confrontation and, finally, satisfying closure at the end. And while that does certainly happen, it’s done in such a way that feels uniquely and renewably its own. Superficially speaking, “Elemental” is creating a real world unto itself, exploring real themes in adult ways, all with the facade of a thematic children’s picture. The lacking of machismo and forth-putting charisma, tied into an ingeniously original narrative with a human touch makes it quintessential Pixar. I think the little girl with her father sitting next to me whispered it best: “This is an emotional movie.”

It will take many more years and many more tries to surrender to the idea that it’s near impossible at this point to precisely and exactly recreate what gave Pixar its spark in the first place. As long as these movies are released, someone will always complain. But even if we do find the secret ingredient someday, it will take more attempts to get it right on a consistent, year-to-year basis. “Elemental” imagines a scenario where people learn to open up when someone dares to make a difference. If that concept does more than merely entertain kids, and instead reaches them internally as the classics once reached me, Pixar is walking steady on their feet in the right direction.

Now playing in theaters.