Elemental Review

Theatrical Movie Review for Pixar's new film

Pixar has tackled many aspects of life in its existence. They have looked at what it’s like to let go of someone as they grow up in “Toy Story” and “Finding Nemo.” They have  examined emotional growth and intelligence in “Inside.” They have addressed the death of a loved one and finding new adventures in “Up.” But in the many themes they have considered over the years, Pixar has never put romantic love under the spotlight. It may have been a side story, but in Peter Sohn’s “Elemental,” love takes the spotlight.

Ember (Leah Lewis) lives with her parents Bernie(Ronnie Del Carmen) and Cinder (Shila Ommi) outside of Elemental City in Firetown. Ember is poised to take over her father’s shop as soon as she learns to control her temper. One day when her rage overflows, she causes a leak in the pipes under the family business, and city inspector Wade (Mamoudou Athie) is swept in. Wade and Ember must work together to try to save her family’s shop from being shut down, and along the way, they try to figure out if two elements like fire and water can be something more together.

This is a really ambitious movie, and I think because of that, it didn’t quite work for me.

The animation is, as always, genuinely beautiful. I saw this in 3D and it is visually exquisite. I really loved the various textures of the different elements, though it was clear that the bulk of the time was spent on the water and fire characters. The use of color and light in this was stunning and an absolute feast for the eyes.

The voice work was hit or miss for me. Bernie and Cinder were immigrants who lost their Firish names when they left their homeland for something easier for the masses to pronounce. Bernie speaks in a broken English, which isn’t a problem, but it never slipped in and out of Firish, which I think might have made it both more interesting and given his character more depth. Athie probably felt like the strongest performance, with so much empathy in his voice.

The biggest problem for me was the breadth of the story. It was a love story, but it was also a story about learning to trust your emotions, and about a father and daughter trying to understand each other, and also about the issue of class, and also about city permits? The story was just so broad that I felt like it never quite came together as strongly as it could have. Parts of it worked beautifully, but they were broken up by so much clutter that I just found it hard to be as invested as I might have been if it had been trimmed.

When we started the movie, the 3D wasn’t quite working in our theater. One of the technicians was alerted, and did something that made the aspect ratio a little smaller, but the picture much clearer. I think if someone had made this film a little smaller, it could have been much clearer and ultimately more enjoyable.

This review originally appeared in The Dominion Post on June 18, 2023.