The beauty of animation is that in that medium, literally any story can be told. To paraphrase Marty Sklar (and not Walt Disney), "If you can draw it, you can do it." And yet, animation’s versatility has in some ways led to it being pigeonholed as a way to tell the stories that specifically couldn’t be told through live-action. Fantasy stories with anthropomorphized, talking animals and magical worlds are among the most popular of these. But as digital effects allow live-action stories to create worlds like never before, it is perhaps fitting that Pixar has used animation to give us Elemental, and tell a story we routinely see in live-action, but in a way that is purely Pixar.
Ember Luman (Leah Lewis) is a fire person, a literal living flame in a world where life is made up of races based on the four classic elements of earth, air, fire and water. She’s the daughter of immigrants who left Fire Land before she was born to find a new life in Element City, a land where the four races live together, though fire people largely keep to themselves in their own neighborhood. Ember has been brought up to inherit her father’s store, though her fiery temper makes it difficult for her to wait on customers.
One day, Ember’s temper accidentally bursts a water pipe and introduces her to Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie), a water person and city inspector who then proceeds to write up the store for a number of citations. Ember attempts to fix this problem without her parents ever finding out. A sympathetic Wade tries to help, leading to the pair spending time together and discovering that despite the fact that they are literal fire and water, they have a connection.
Elemental is a story we’ve heard before, but in a way we’ve never seen.
The basic plot of Elemental certainly isn’t anything new. It’s a literal “opposites attract”-style romance, with a dash of the classic “follow your dreams” thrown in for good measure. What separates Elemental from the rest is that while we know the plot beats, we’ve simply never seen them done this way. We’ve seen this story done in live-action, but nobody has ever translated it into animation before.
Director Peter Sohn has crafted the strongest character-driven narrative we’ve ever seen in a major animated movie. There is (almost) no story to be told here beyond the relationship between Ember and Wade. We see them meet, realize how they feel for each other and then deal with what their new relationship means to themselves and their families. It's Pixar's first date movie, and it's beautiful.
Release Date: June 16, 2023
Directed By: Peter Sohn
Written By: John Hoberg, Kat Likkel, Brenda Hsueh
Starring: Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie
Rating: PG
Runtime: 103 minutes
Pixar's trademark humor is on display, but calling Elemental a romantic comedy because it happens to contain romance and humor doesn't feel like an accurate description. None of the traditional rom-com tropes will be found here.
Any romantic story lives or dies on the strength of its lead, so luckily Athie and Lewis are up to the task of making the audience empathize with their characters, despite the fact that they’re an extra step removed from reality. Ember and Wade are a wonderful couple that it’s easy to root for them. Neither one of them is perfect, but their strengths complement each other well and they teach each other how to be better.
Ember and Wade are as good a romantic pair as any live-action couple.
That’s not to say that the story itself handles both characters equally. Elemental is ultimately Ember's story, not Wade's. Wade has a story to tell and a character arc of his own, but the film spends much less time on his side of the relationship, making his arc less satisfying.
Still, the drama created by Ember and Wade’s relationship is compelling enough that it could have held up all of Elemental which makes it a shame that it doesn’t. There is a b-plot dealing with the ultimate cause of the water problem that brought the characters together, which gets occasionally revisited and ultimately leads to the film’s third act set piece. It's woven into the main plot in a way that works well enough, but all the time that was used to deal with it could have been used to further explore Ember and Wade.
The racial allegory of fire and water getting together is certainly obvious. It’s not a driving force of the story, but it’s intentionally there. Ember’s working-class dad’s racism toward water people is a bit more overt, but Wade’s upper-class family has their own bias that shows, even if it’s a bit less direct.
The character drama of Elemental is so strong it’s a shame the movie doesn’t let carry the whole movie.
Attached to the racial element is a discussion of class struggle that is what's really at the heart of Ember's story. Elemental opens before Ember’s birth, as we witness her parents’ emigration to Element City, which gives the audience an understanding of her mom and dad, and Ember’s obligation to them, in a way that many movies that deal with similar subjects do not. It makes the conflict that comes later resonate that much more because you understand their point of view as well.
At this point, complementing Pixar on its animation seems almost a given, but no overview of Elemental can be complete without considering how beautiful it looks. The fact that Ember and Wade are made of fire and water, respectively, means that their character forms are never still, even when they’re not moving. Ember’s fire is always burning and bubbles pass through Wade’s body constantly. The detail and craft on display are truly incredible. Many viewers will never see the level of detail, which is part of why you can tell it’s so well done.
People falling in love in animated films is certainly nothing new; it happens all the time. However, we're never seen a major animation studio like Pixar produce such a purely romantic film as Elemental. And yes, you will cry.
