Yet another movie in the category of “I probably would’ve gone to the theater to see this in the before-times.” I actually caught it on Disney+ a few months back, but Oscar season put writing this review on hold. While I wouldn’t put it at the top tier of Pixar’s stuff, it’s a beautiful, creative film with some wonderful characters.
Ember lives in the bustling, diverse Element City but mainly sticks to her own cultural enclave of Fire Town. She’s spent much of her life preparing to take over her father’s shop one day. It’s his pride and joy, and she beats herself up when her hot temper keeps getting in the way. One day, an epic blow-up puts her on a collision course with Wade, a friendly and sensitive city inspector who’s obligated to cite the shop for code violations. In her anxious rush to preserve the shop, Ember needs to work together with Wade, despite her father’s adamant belief that fire and water cannot mix.
As I was writing that summary, it occurred to me that it’d be possible to give a decent description of the premise without even mentioning that all the characters are anthropomorphized elements. The basic story—cultural friction in a diverse city, a young woman struggling between her parents’ dreams and her own, short-tempered girl + sensitive guy—could happen in any number of movies. The element angle gives it a more fantastical side and offers up more inventive animation, and it uses the elements of fire, water, air, and earth to explore its themes in metaphorical ways.
The comparisons to Zootopia are obvious, and while I’d probably pick that film if forced to choose between these two, that’s not to sell Elemental short. The animation is pretty stunning, and the story is lovely—Pixar definitely got me again in that third act! Most of all, though, I really like Ember and Wade as characters.
Ember is living in a city that literally wasn’t built for her. We see in the intro that Element City has gone through several waves of immigration, and fire people are the most recent arrivals to the city. Any time she ventures outside her familiar neighborhood, she feels like she has to tamp herself down, edging around people who are nervous about her presence, and there’s a ton of water-friendly infrastructure that’s dangerous to her. While she’s more comfortable in her skin in Fire Town, she’s still been conditioned to apologize for essential parts of herself. Meanwhile, Wade wears his heart entirely on his sleeve, but that’s not portrayed as a weakness. A bit like Sadness in Inside Out, his emotional side can help him connect with people. He’s deeply empathetic and easily moved, and he’s just as likely to cry at something beautiful as he is at something sad. Watching these two characters connect, learning to understand themselves better as they start to understand each other, is really beautiful.
Leah Lewis, who was fantastic in The Half of It, does a great job voicing Ember. Her honest, grounded performance feels real amid the larger-than-life parts of the film. And I’ve never heard of Mamoudou Athie, the voices Wade, but he’s excellent: warm and goofy and quietly strong. I’m not too familiar with the rest of the cast, aside from Catherine O’Hara, who pops up as Wade’s mom.
Warnings
Scary moments for kids, mild innuendo, and thematic elements.
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