When the first, noticeably tepid reviews of Elemental flowed out of the Cannes Film Festival in May, Pixar couldn’t help but blame its audience’s own lofty expectations. “We seem to be critiqued not only based on other movies but on our own stuff,” studio head Pete Docter told Variety at the time. On the one hand, he was employing the sort of mandated PR talk that positions “fans” against “critics” and perceives everything remotely critical as a personal attack. On the other hand, he has a point.
After nearly three decades of forcing audiences to choke on their own sobs, Pixar now faces a conundrum: if one of their films fails to trigger an existential crisis, it can feel like a betrayal. It’s a curse of the studio’s own making. They’ve built an entire brand on purified emotions, so when those ingredients are lacking, it is painfully obvious. Elemental, their 27th movie, is gentle and humane but never raw or vulnerable.
