EAT • SLEEP • REVIEW • REPEAT
ELEMENTAL
A watery story with a warm heart.
It really has been a funny old time for Pixar recently. Not funny ha-ha. Just funny.
While COVID tore the film industry a new one with cinema closures and production delays causing untold damage to every movie and studio in town, few felt the full force of the pandemic quite like Pixar.
From the promising box office of Onward being hobbled mid-flight to Soul, Luca, and Turning Red being relegated to Disney+ content fodder, Pixar had a real rough run of it. Not even a reliable box office hero like Buzz Lightyear could save the day when the studio finally returned to cinemas.
After several years of sequels, this has actually been one of the most fruitful periods for Pixar originals in the studio’s illustrious history, yet something just doesn’t feel right. Whether it’s Disney’s fault for throwing Pixar under the bus for three years, a shift in perception from audiences, or a fundamental issue with marketing, we appear to be at a crossroads.
Whether Elemental is the film to turn those fortunes around, only time will tell. However, as the first full-blooded Pixar original to have a theatrical release since COVID struck, whatever the future holds, this is surely a moment to savour.
In Element City, where fire, water, land, and air residents live together, a fiery young woman, Ember (Leah Lewis), and a loveable, go-with-the-flow guy, Wade (Mamoudou Athie), find one another across a divide. As the unlikely couple grow closer, their differences become more apparent, but it’s not long before they discover something truly elemental - how much they actually have in common.
From its odd couple protagonists to its preoccupation with world building, to its flawed parental figures, to the key role emotion plays in its story, Elemental really couldn’t be more Pixar if it tried. For better or worse, since the moment we clapped eyes on Toy Story, Pixar have boasted an incredibly recognisable style, one that has endured to this day, and nowhere is this more apparent than with their latest offering.
Elemental’s various Pixarisms are there loud and clear, but while they’ll certainly be familiar to anyone with even a passing knowledge of the studio and its filmography, these elements, for the best part, are executed beautifully.
In many ways, the film wears its clichés on its sleeve, clearly happy to play it safe and play in the shallow end of the Pixar pool. Pulling from several past Pixar classics, with a huge helping of Disney’s Zootopia for good measure, there’s nothing overtly ground-breaking in what Elemental is doing but there’s much to admire in its execution.
With an elementary narrative that wraps an easy-going rom-com plot around an age-old immigrant tale, Elemental meshes two easily accessible and easily understandable concepts to produce a story big in personality yet low in stakes. And sometimes that’s all you can ask for, even with Pixar.
As is the norm with any Pixar entry, Elemental is nothing short of gorgeous, as the streets, buildings, and residents of Element City are brought to life in jaw-dropping detail. Almost thirty years after they started, Pixar remain untouchable in their ability to lovingly construct and meticulously realise whole animated worlds that not only feel lived in but utterly logical, and Elemental sees them at the peak of their craft.
Whether it’s the delicate intricacies of the film’s fire characters or the vast, sprawling detail of Element City itself, every frame is a work of art, and every inch of the screen is utilised to its full potential. You really would think that we’d all be used to Pixar’s S-tier artistry by now, yet Elemental demonstrates that there are still higher levels to this.
While the sheer imagination on display puts Elemental among the very best Pixar efforts, this visual sophistication is somewhat counterbalanced by the simplicity of the film’s story.
With a structure that adheres to a host of classic rom-com tropes, Elemental really doesn’t offer anything narratively intriguing. From meet-cute to full-blown romance, Ember and Wade’s love story isn’t remotely innovative or ground-breaking, yet these simplicities are all part of its easy-going charm.
This is a film that finds joy in the simple things, and while Elemental’s backdrop is incredibly intricate, the story around it is as uncomplicated as it is wholesome. Whether it’s Ember’s struggle to live up to her immigrant parent’s expectations or her love-across-a-divide romance with Wade, the story sticks to the basics, yet executes them exceedingly well.
Pixar has always had heart to back up its artistry and Elementary exemplifies this. Not only are the core characters effortlessly endearing, but the story counterbalances the sheen of the animation with a heart-warming message that feels both deeply personal to director Peter Sohn and utterly universal.
Supplemented by Thomas Newman’s wonderful score (perhaps one of Pixar’s finest in recent memory), Elemental may not aim for the stars with its ambitions, however, it more than excels at the small things. Shiny, dazzling, and full of fantastical characters though it may be, Elemental is a profoundly personal story and deeply human at its heart.
Lightyear aside, after years of sequels and huge concepts, Pixar’s post-pandemic offerings have seen the studio adopt a far more personal, small-scale approach, and Elemental feels like the perfect continuation of this.
Whether it’s the existential musings of Soul, the coming-of-age friendship of Luca, or the puberty allegories of Turning Red, despite being done dirty by Disney’s top brass, Pixar have found a fair amount of success by going low-key of late. It’s a period that feels very reminiscent of their early days, and while Elemental may not end up being the huge box office hit Pixar were hoping for, it’s just good to see the studio still prepared to make things personal.
While Elemental couldn’t have been more Pixar if it tried, every one of its classic Pixarisms is beautifully executed. A simple, gorgeously drawn, wonderfully imagined, tenderly told immigrant tale with charm to spare, Elemental may be low on narrative ambition, yet it’s big on artistry and heart. Disney’s wonky marketing did this one dirty. It deserved so much better.
