#REVIEW: “ELEMENTAL”

Review by David Baldwin for Mr. Will Wong

In Element City, fire, water, land and air individuals co-exist together. Most of the fire residents live in a borough called Fire Town, where Ember Lumin (Leah Lewis) dreams of one day taking over her Dad’s convenience store, The Fireplace. She has to gain control of her nasty temper first though; one that leads to her meeting water resident and Health Inspector Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie). And despite their cultural differences and initially competing agendas, sparks quickly begin to fly.

27 films and nearly 30 years in, Pixar continues to make wildly imaginative and unique animated pictures that appeal to children just as much as they do to adults. The Company makes films that transcend the filmmaking medium and frequently stretches the very limits of possibility. You know what kind of film you are sitting down to watch when that little lamp hops across your screen, and all the care and detail that goes along with it.

Which makes ELEMENTAL a bit of an interesting case.

The animation is as astounding as you expect – the water-related effects specifically blew my mind – as is the moving and intimate Score by Thomas Newman and the exquisite Voice Acting. Lewis does a terrific job carrying the Film and does even better with the palpable chemistry she shares with Athie. It’s genuinely refreshing to hear such a diverse Cast of voices breathing life into these characters and I smiled whenever legendary Canadian thespian Catherine O’Hara popped-up (just do not expect any Moira Rose -style antics).

Beyond that however, the Film is a tonal and thematic mess. At its heart, ELEMENTAL is about immigrants who left home in search of something better, as well as the generational trauma that comes along with it. Both are heady subjects for a film geared towards families with small children, full stop. But it also has other things on its mind, namely racism, prejudice, loss of culture, cultural appropriation and reclamation, and its ultimate all-encompassing goal of being a romantic melodrama about two quirky young people falling in love despite their different backgrounds. If that sounds like a lot to digest, that’s because it is. My three-year-old was frequently bored under the weight of everything going on here, and even with an already challenging 109-minute runtime, it still does not feel like it says enough about any of the ideas it wants to explore.

Worse, it barely skims the incredible world Director Peter Sohn and his team have crafted for its characters. It has some cute details hovering in the backgrounds yet never goes beyond the surface level for anything else. The central romance is sweet and intimate (especially when you stop to realize its between two anthropomorphized natural elements), but the Film cannot stop introducing ideas and obstacles that get in Ember and Wade’s way of being together. A third act pivot is especially egregious as it contradicts a story beat the film kept harping on previously.

I really wanted to love ELEMENTAL like I do so many other films in the Pixar library. Unfortunately, I was left frustrated by it never landing on what it wanted to be. There is so much greatness on display here and some genuinely heartfelt moments – yet it collapses under the weight of everything it wants to cover in its lengthy and somehow still not long enough runtime. Lewis and Athie’s wonderful romance and chemistry deserved a stronger, more cohesive movie around them.

All of this said, I would be remiss to not mention that the Film opens with the short CARL’S DATE, which brings back fan favourite Up characters Carl Fredericksen (the late, great Ed Asner) and Dug the Dog (Bob Peterson). It’s just as heartwarming as it sounds. Just try not to cry when you remember that Asner is no longer with us.

Walt Disney Studios Canada release ELEMENTAL in theatres on June 16, 2023.