Directed by: Peter Sohn
Starring: Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Ronnie Del Carmen, Wendi McLendon-Covey
Rated PG, 109 minutes
When Pixar’s first feature, “Toy Story,” premiered in 1995, the studio immediately stood out from the crowd. The first computer-animated feature ever released by anyone, “Toy Story” represented a quantum leap forward for the genre, an achievement so monumental that even Disney, riding the high of their renaissance of the ‘80s and ‘90s, took notice. (Pixar has been a subsidiary of Disney since 2006.) The subsequent parade of high-profile features from the studio only further cemented its reputation; the very name Pixar became synonymous, for years, with first-rate animation.
These days, nearly 30 years after their auspicious debut, the animators at Pixar have more competition. No longer are they the only ones producing polished computer animation, no longer are they the undisputed leader in the field. What’s more, their string of high-profile successes in the years following “Toy Story” gave way to an uneven streak in the past decade, with features like “Brave” and “Monsters University” representing a plateau in quality, and features like “The Good Dinosaur” and “Onward” giving Pixar rare and humbling box office flops.
“Elemental,” Pixar’s 27th feature (directed by Peter Sohn, who also helmed “The Good Dinosaur”), sees the studio going back to basics, for better or worse. Set in the bustling Element City, the film imagines a world populated by beings that embody the four classical elements: earth, air, fire, and water. We meet the fire people, relegated to a dry, rundown part of the city because of the danger they pose to the other elements. As you might imagine, years of segregation have given way to an us-versus-them attitude. “Elements don’t mix,” they declare with all the overstated certainty of characters about to be proved wrong.
Because, inevitably, the elements do mix. Ember (voiced by Leah Lewis, “The Half of It”), who works in her father’s general store in the Fire Town neighborhood and is expected to take over when he retires, falls in with a city inspector, the water person Wade (Mamoudou Athie, “Jurassic World: Dominion”). Opposites attract, naturally, and soon Ember and Wade are in love, a romance that Ember instinctively keeps secret from her parents.
The movie’s unimaginative premise is very nearly irritating, and in the hands of a different studio might have turned out as unsurprising and bland as it sounds. However, “Elemental” takes its time with the world-building, filling in the contours of its setting until the sooty streets of Fire Town and the watery subways criss-crossing Element City start to coalesce into something diverse and distinctive, like any lively city. The story develops layers, too, as its specific details come to light. At its heart, “Elemental” is an immigrant saga, with Ember the second-generation child trying to make good on the sacrifices her parents made when they left their old life behind. In that context, all the elemental separations endemic to Element City, imposed by the city and Ember’s parents and even Ember herself, take on a poignant weight.
If “Elemental” doesn’t quite have the nuance to sell its allegorical, socially-conscious storytelling, it makes up for it with earnestness and playful humor. The story may be Ember’s, but it’s Wade who steals the show, his unflagging optimism and therapist’s mindset pushing the story forward whenever it shows signs of slowing. (“Maybe your temper is trying to tell you something you’re not ready to hear,” he advises Ember sagely, a bit of obvious foreshadowing that doubles as incisive psychoanalysis.) The movie’s best gag involves his penchant for bursting into tears, which he does at least a half-dozen times; it’s just as funny every time. His bald sentimentality, if occasionally bordering on histrionics, gives an otherwise plain story several moments of disarming sincerity.
That Pixar can still pull off these little surprises of tenderness, even with a premise as seemingly superficial as this one, is a testament to the wisdom of the studio’s guiding philosophy, which launched them to success three decades ago. The computer animations may have gotten our attention, but at its best, Pixar’s inimitable gift has been telling stories for children without resorting to the dumbed-down conclusions and oversimplified conflicts that so many other studios accept as a necessity. “Elemental” is a long way from Pixar’s finest work, but as has been the case since its inception, even a middling Pixar movie sets a high bar.
Originally published in The Harvard Press on 6/23/23.