Pixar is currently in what we’ll generously call an “awkward phase.” While Luca and Turning Red show that Pixar is still invested in new talent, any attempts at commercial success are falling flat. You already forgot about Lightyear, the only Pixar film released theatrically post-covid. What can make Pixar relevant again? Sadly, it won’t be Elemental, a technically impressive film that is also painfully generic, looking more like a parody of Pixar work than an actual story. Conceptually both too confusing and too on-the-nose, Elemental is maybe the only movie where I’ve heard “water” used as a slur multiple times. Unlike recent movies where the marketing strategy seems to be “lie about the movie’s genre when it’s just an action movie,” Elemental gets points for actually being a romcom, but there’s too much and too little happening around this relationship.

Ember (Leah Lewis) is a fire element who works at her family’s convenience store, the Fireplace, in Fire Town. You’re gonna hear that word a lot. She is determined to run the shop one day so her father can retire, but her temper keeps getting in the way. When one of her flare ups bursts a pipe in the basement, a water element named Wade (Mamoudou Athie) drips out. Wade is a city inspector and has no choice but to shut the Fireplace down for multiple violations… but he feels really bad about it. Ember chases him into Element City to get him to change his mind, facing plenty of anti-fire prejudice along the way. Don’t worry, if you forget any of the plot points, the characters will remind you over and over again.

While the performances by Lewis and Athie are strong, and I’m glad Pixar isn’t just dumping big names into these roles thoughtlessly, they are hampered by a repetitive script that underlines every point it’s trying to make multiple times. Fire is like this, water is like that, Ember wants to take over the shop “when she’s ready,” elements can’t mix, etc., etc. You can see every plot point coming from a mile away. The animation is impressive in a “how did they do that” way, but not a visual splendor one. Pixar is constantly pushing the boundaries of animation, but it might be time to take a step back and focus on style and character. How real does a cartoon need to look?

I’ll say this – the film is too weird for me to not like it just a little bit. It’s certainly better than Lightyear, but what does that mean? We’ve had plenty of animated movies about immigrant families, generational trauma, and general bigotry. The metaphors don’t work. Fire is dangerous, so you can understand why the earth people might not want them in their buildings? The fire people make “kol-nuts” from wood… is that wood alive at some point? Peter Sohn has been very clear that this film is about his experience as a family of Korean immigrants and a love letter to his parents, so why does it feel like he hates them? Is the “big storm” that destroyed Fire Land the Japanese occupation of Korea, or just the Korean War? But talking about it like this just confuses things further, which in turn takes you further and further away from the film itself. Breaking Elemental down to its… well, elements, just shows there’s nothing new here.

Elemental
2023
Dir. Peter Sohn
102 min

Check out my interview with Pixar Character Animator Becki Tower!

Elemental opens in theaters Friday 6/16