ANI-MOVIES, *Elemental

If you ever wondered what Disney's Zootopia would've been like if it was more of a romantic comedy instead of a humorous mystery, then Pixar took that bet when they produced Elemental in 2023. Where Zootopia showed different animals living together in a single big city, Elemental does the same dance but with living anthropomorphic elements. The film was directed by Peter Sohn who hadn't held that position since he headed The Good Dinosaur, and has an original story written by three writers most of who didn't have much experience working on animated movie screenplays but TV sitcoms. Since this was one of Pixar's movies not focused on children, it became more of a sleeper hit despite Disney's attempt push Elemental Happy Meals, even though the film managed to gain a larger audience outside of theaters.

Taking place in a world of living elemental people, Element City is set up as the great melting pot for different elements to live together in harmony, even though each element is sanctioned off into their own separated part of town. Bernie and Cinder are a fire couple who move to Element City to open up their own store called The Fireplace which they plan to one day hand over to their daughter Ember. A few years later, Ember is trying to get ready to fill in for her father when he retires, she finds that dealing with the steady flow of customers is infuriating, causing her to erupt into a raging fireball which breaks a water pipe in the basement. This has a water element named Wade who is also a city inspector leak in. He learns from Ember that her father never got permits for any of the pipework when he made the Fireplace, so Wade goes to report his findings to City Hall much to Ember's sadness, even though Wade feels bad about what he had to do. The well-meaning water boy tries to square things by having her speak to his flighty cloud supervisor Gale who permits Ember and Wade a week to find where the water leak is coming from, even though that is something that civil service should handle. The two of them find a break in the dam from the water part of town and manage to seal it up with sandbags, but Wade couldn't get a proper crew together to cement it shut, which is also a failure of the city's officials, so Ember seals it with tempered glass made from her own fire which shows her creative talent for glassblowing. Wade and Ember then start to spend some time together and find that they enjoy the other's company. This is solidified when they visit Wade's family, and his mother tells Ember about an internship as a glass maker when she realizes her temper is her heart's way of telling her that she doesn't really want to take over the Fireplace. After a dazzling underwater excursion, Ember and Wade discover they can actually touch each other despite whatever social rumors they were laboring under. Ember realizes that she can't be with Wade because she's committed to helping her family, but Wade tries to convince her of his feelings just as the dam breaks again causing fire neighborhood to become flooded. Wade helps Ember save her family's precious Blue Flame furnace which wins over Bernie's approval for Ember to go and pursue her dreams with Wade while someone else takes up running the Fireplace.

Elemental is one of Pixar's visually exceptional productions even though it doesn't leave the same impact as some of their other releases like Toy Story probably because as a romantic comedy it appealed more to mature audiences. Pixar manages to draw attention to the struggles of culture clash and how immigrants in a new country would have difficulty adapting to a shared community. As far as the romance angle, Wade and Ember's relationship is somewhat trite, but still fairly acceptable. The most alluring aspect is the animation which went far and beyond Pixar's standard level. The characters are designed like something out of spirits made by Studio Ghibli, and their interactions with opposite elements are nearly lifelike. Elemental is more of a film that was made to stretch the studio's talent than it was to cash in on a blockbuster movie, even though the similarities between this and Zootopia are more than obvious which takes away from the movie's appeal.