Elemental (2023)

Score: 3.5 / 5

People tend to place Pixar features on the top shelf of animation, and historically, rightfully so: consider the groundbreaking and visionary titles that came out every couple years after Toy Story and at least once per year since probably Ratatouille. But I try to remind myself and others often that the story of Pixar is also the story of Disney animation, and the two are hardly divisible anymore. And, more importantly, that Pixar hasn't had much real inspiration since Onward in 2020, and Coco in 2017 before that. Everything else they've put out has been sequels or "original" films that all have to do with nonwhite characters turning into animals for most of their respective films. Think I'm being harsh? Almost exactly a year ago they released Lightyear, and the three titles before that include Turning Red, Luca, and Soul. Not to mention that I've never forgiven the studio for creating the Cars franchise.

So when I heard the latest Disney/Pixar feature would release this summer, I took the news with dubious enthusiasm. Its trailer looks not unlike a cross between Inside Out and Zootopia, and that's pretty much what the film delivers. At least visually. Director Peter Sohn (who also directed The Good Dinosaur) and his team here imagines an urban metropolis in which the hoi polloi are anthropomorphic natural elements. That is, there are clear delineations between the earth/tree people, water peeps, air/cloud denizens, and of course the fire folks. As the characters traverse the bustling New York-like city, we're treated to endlessly clever inventions of visual flair, fully realizing the joys and humor inherent in its high concept. Of course most of the elements can mix in somewhat safe ways, with the exception of fire; most of the film's comedy and drama come, in tandem, from the plight of fire people to navigate the waterways and wooden infrastructure of Element City.

Naturally, then, the heart of the story lies with the fire people, flaming characters who have immigrated to the city and established a culturally specific neighborhood together. The film doesn't shy away from paining the fire folks as nonwhite, though it's not terribly specific beyond that (there are mixtures of Spanish, Arabian, Indian, and other historically nonwhite immigrant groups all rolled into the fire community, even including Irish in a brief but eye-catching gag: "Kiss me, I'm Firish!"). For the purpose of context, the water folk are generally meant to be wealthier white people, fully Americanized and sitting pretty in the city made by and for themselves. Whereas Zootopia focused its breakdown of discrimination and segregation on the "predator and prey" dichotomy in a social/political way, Elemental takes a more domestic approach, concerning itself with intergenerational conflicts, second generation migrant development, and of course young love.

Apart from a few excursions and brief scenes, we don't get much information about the gnome-like earth people or the puffy, athletic cloud puffs. I'd have liked some more effort to fully realize these communities, because the film instead packs so many sight gags that they're hard to recall and generally unsatisfying due to a lack of concern. What does get more focus, tellingly, is the romantic heart of the plot, between the star-crossed fiery protagonist Ember (Leah Lewis) and the watery simp Wade (Mamoudou Athie). Wade, a city inspector, got literally sucked into Ember's basement when her hot temper flares, bursting some pipes and revealing an existential threat to the infrastructure of Firetown. She initially pursues him to stop her father's store (soon to be her inheritance) from being closed, and then the two embark on a quest to save all of Firetown. It's a beautiful and happily ending interracial love story, one that rarely (if ever) has been told by Disney, at least not with human characters. Many sequences felt directly inspired by classic romances like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and especially Moonstruck, and while it's not a genre I typically enjoy, it was interesting and entertaining to see Disney so openly embracing that particular cinematic tradition.

But there's nothing new or fresh about that part, as the two lovers "will they or won't they" through familiar plotholes and rote expository doldrums. The exciting parts of this film lie with Ember's family and their struggles to maintain their pride as well as their livelihood. The opening sequence dramatizes Ember's parents coming through the Ellis Island of Element City and getting Anglicized names (Bernie and Cinder). As Ember grows, her father grooms her as his heir apparent, a de facto store owner and manager, though she increasingly realizes that her gifts and interests do not align with the life plan her father has determined. Rather than on her flirty adventures with Wade, I cared much more about the impending fallout Ember prepares to have with her family. We're just not given much time to dwell on anything because of the film's frenetic pace and commitment to spectacle.

While the animation is uniformly brilliant, it feels a bit hindered by the lackluster storytelling, which can't quite decide just how My Big Fat Greek Wedding it wants to be. Voice acting is great, the score by Thomas Newman is phenomenal (and clearly sourced from a wide variety of international, multicultural musical traditions), and even Catherine O'Hara pops in for a few scenes as Wade's mother. I cried heartily by film's end, much as I did in Luca, and while the movie is indeed a delightful romp, it never quite manages to capture a sense of wonder and magic, preferring instead to rehash tired tropes of romance and play its own social and political ideas disappointingly safely.