Elemental (Pixar, 2023)
Elemental works better as a love story than as an immigrant tale. But the latest Pixar effort is still worth it for the dazzling visuals and the lively voice cast.
Directed by Peter Sohn (The Good Dinosaur), from a script by John Hobert, Kat Likkel, Brenda Hauer and himself, the movie tells the story of fiery immigrants daughter Ember (Leah Lewis), who falls in love with her polar opposite: an easy going rich kid called Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie), who is made out of water.
So like fire and water, they are supposed to cancel each other out. But along the way they discover they have much more in common than they ever thought possible.
Ember and Wade live in Element City, where there are four kinds of people, with Earth and Air people being the other two, in the shape of Trees and Clouds respectively.
Visually it’s an amazing movie. At times it’s like experimental cinema. With all the various shapes and forms moving and dancing around on screen in a way I can’t remember having seen before in a mainstream animated movie.
What also works in its favor is that voice artists Lewis and Athie have real chemistry, which makes their romantic involvement very believable.
For me it’s enough to compensate the schematic set-up, in which the immigrants of Element City - which serves as a metaphor for modern US - are passionate people, while the others just try to water them down.
Of course, it’s all done with good intentions and the humanistic message of ‘why can’t we just live together?’ is definitely present, as it is in all Pixar-movies.
Still, a little more thematic subtlety wouldn’t have the movie, but Elemental is still worth watching for the love story. And if you want the full visual experience you should definitely catch it on the biggest screen possible.