‘Elemental’ review: Pixar’s chemical romance simmers with creative spark in a tale as old as time | Cannes

And so we say au revoir to another Cannes Film Festival. The closing film of the prestigious festival was the newest outing from animation powerhouse; Pixar with Peter Sohn’s Elemental. After 11 days of watching dozens of heavy and often draining films about the Holocaust (The Zone of Interest), suspenseful court cases (Anatomy of a Fall) and illicit semi-incestual affairs (Last Summer), I was craving a sweet nourishing feel-good movie – and Elemental was very much the tall glass of water that quenched my thirst. And oh what a lovely note to finish the festival on. 

Elemental marks the 27th film from Pixar and the second film that Sohn has directed. His first was the thematically ambitious but kinda boring The Good Dinosaur which incidentally was also Pixar’s first-ever bonafide flop both critically and commercially. However, Pixar’s Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter didn’t let that deter him from giving Sohn another opportunity to helm a feature.

Whilst it in no way has the profound insight of Inside Out or the poignancy of Coco or the emotional impact of Toy Story 3, Elemental shows a notable effort to try to recapture some of the magic of the Pixar heyday. It’s unlikely to be in many people’s top-tier Pixar rankings but it still delivers an ambitious, family-friendly tale about forging your own path and listening to your heart.

At first glance, Elemental showed promise of being another high-concept, original and thought-provoking tale in the Pixar wheelhouse. A transportive imaginative picture that explores humanity via anthropomorphised characters that belong to one of the four natural elements; earth, air, fire and water. Whilst it is a significant improvement on The Good Dinosaur, Sohn’s Elemental doesn’t quite reach true Pixar greatness – but there are sparks of it peppered throughout. Sure, taking elements and giving them feelings isn’t something we’ve seen before but the core plot is tale-as-old-as-time; two characters that are total opposites coming together. And what’s more opposite than fire and water? 

Ember Lumin (Leah Lewis), a fire element, is the daughter of immigrant parents Bernie (Ronnie Del Carmen) and Cinder (Sheila Ommi) who moved to Element City before Ember was born in search of prosperity. Elemental is sure to resonate deeply with those who have ever emigrated to try to get a slice of the American dream and even those who are second or third-generation children of immigrants. The opening scene which establishes the geography of Elemental City is reminiscent of Ellis Island and those coming to America for opportunity and safety. 

Ember is being groomed to one day take over her father’s shop which he built from the ground up. From birth, Ember has been raised to believe inheriting the shop was always her path but all that changes when a city inspector water element named Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie) comes crashing through the shop’s pipes. He reports a multitude of citations which puts the shop at risk of closing permanently but a lifeline is offered to Ember. If she and Wade can find the source of a leak in Element City then all will be forgiven by town planner Gale (Wendi McLendon-Covey) and her father’s business will be saved.

Pixar typically favours portraying friendships over romantic relationships and we’ve seen some wonderful romances across Pixar’s almost 30-year lifespan; WALL-E and Eve, Carl and Ellie, Mr Incredible and Elastigirl but Elemental is the closest Pixar has come to a genuine boy-meets-girl rom-com. She’s the passionate hothead with a temper and he’s the overly-emotional empath. They have a rocky start but like any good relationship, they bring balance to one another by possessing the qualities that the other lacks. Elements aren’t meant to mix but of course, what happens when you mix fire and water? You create steam and naturally, a chemical reaction occurs between Ember and Wade.

Notoriously, fire and water have long been two of the most difficult things to create digitally. But the contrast between Ember and Wade is impressive with her constant flickering and shifting temperatures and him being held together like a gelatinous fluid. It’s clear the animators put a lot of thought into the physics and lighting of the elements and how they would interact with the environments around them. However, there are times the story seems to break its own rules such as an underwater sequence where Ember sees the blooming of a rare flower known as Vivisteria. And then there’s the film’s finale when Wade seemingly forgets he can fit through a gap the width of an iPhone but can’t wiggle through fallen rubble. 

There’s no shortage of layed subtext here. Elemental speaks not only to the immigrant experience but also to the universal external pressures kids can feel from their parents. Whether it be the expectation to partner up with someone from their own race or to go into a specific pre-approved occupation. Since Ember has had her future mapped out for her she’s never asked herself what it is that she wants – and neither has her father. It’s only when she meets Wade and his go-with-the-flow family that Ember starts to question what’s beyond her immediate surroundings. 

It’s true that only when we leave the safety and familiarity of the nest and put ourselves in different environments and meet people with different experiences to our own, that we learn more about what life has to offer us.

Where Elemental succeeds though is by taking time to show both vantage points of the father-daughter dynamic. There are several flashbacks to Bernie and Cinder’s youth and the struggles they endured to try and make a better life for themselves. The opening scene even sees an Element City customs officer flippantly change their authentic fire names on their documentation to easier-to-pronounce “Western” names; a situation many foreigners can relate to – changing their names to something more White-sounding in order to acclimatise better to their surroundings. They’re even forced to lay down roots in a more dilapidated slummy area of the city because narrow-minded building owners refuse to take fire elements as tenants like Bernie and Cinders. 

While all kids should be free to make their own life choices when they’re grown up, they can often fail to see the sacrifices their parents made in order for them to have a better life than they did. So in true Pixar fashion, there’s wisdom for both kids and adults embedded in the story. It’s certainly worth being said but it’s nothing that hasn’t already been said in other recent films like Zootopia. 

Where Elementals struggles is delivering comedy that both parents and kids can appreciate. The humour is a little more on the kiddie side. Of course, children are the priority but the best Pixar films are those that walk this generational tightrope with finesse. The comedy of Elemental is essentially a mix of sight-gags and every possible tortured pun related to the elements that the writers could think of. They range from “You’re so hot” to “Get off your lazy ash.”

That’s not to say there’s nothing for the parents. The meet-cute of Wade and Ember is more adult-themed then you may initially realise. Their first encounter is loaded with sexual innuendo; she checks out his rippled physique as she stands in a literal flooded basement. Naughty. The animation style is eye-popping, especially in the action set pieces. One chase sequence manages to pay homage to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Christopher Nolan’s Inception simultaneously.

The music of Elemental stands out as one of Pixar’s finest. Thomas Newman’s worldly score incorporates a wide variety of instruments from different cultures. There are flavours of Indian, Vedic, Native American, Chinese and Tibetan sounds all somehow effervescently harmonising together beautifully – as if all hands were coming together in harmony around the world. 

Elemental burns bright with Pixar’s signature blend of vibrant revolutionary animation and imagination. The story may have been done before but the combination of charming characters, inspired world-building, dazzling set-pieces and Newman’s spiritual score is a clear sign that the embers of Pixar’s creative spark are being ignited once again.

Grade: B-

This review is from the 2023 Cannes Film Festival where Elemental premiered out of competition. Walt Disney/Pixar will release the film in the U.S. on June 16.