Elemental

Elemental is a movie that I have been looking forward to for a while. I thought the trailer looked really cute and honestly Pixar has yet to let me down. I know there was a lot of talk about the animation style when it was first released but I think it really fits the story that the movie is trying to tell.

I think the initial problem with the film was the marketing. I think from the trailers, everyone kind of assumed that it was a forbidden love story when right from the beginning it's clearly an immigrant story.

It tells the story of a family who came to a new city for a better life and with that comes some inter-race turmoil. I really think if the trailers had focused on the whole daughter not wanting to disappoint her father, then this movie would have been more successful.

I love that they show the pressure Ember feels in not wanting to disappoint her father. Also getting pressure from her mom to get married, specifically to someone from her element. Then we have the added bonus of the love story between fire and water. I love that they made the character traits of each of the younger elements reflect what they are. Ember is a bit of a hot head and she has trouble controlling her temper and wade is a very sensitive and emotional guy. He also shows her how to connect with other people and more importantly other elements. And then we’ve got the slightly upsetting part of their romance in that they can’t touch each other. They both see so much beauty in each other and they can’t do anything about it.

The details taken in telling the fathers story is so great. Down to dad trying to speak english and getting some words wrong and Ember correcting him. I don’t know what multicultural kid hasn’t done that for their parents. Ember feeling like a bad daughter because she doesn’t feel like she can live up to her parents' sacrifice is also a very immigrant kid struggle. The only part that's losing me here is that I don’t think any ethnic parents are that open for affection. The water is clearly white people. This dinner scene is so very clear that these white people don’t know how to talk to immigrants, “you speak very well and clear”...

Ember realizes that she doesn’t want to go into the family business and take over her father’s shop. She would much rather do something more creative. And I think that is a very real struggle that a lot of kids feel, especially immigrant ones. Desperately trying to repay a sacrifice that can never be repaid.

I love that even though Wade and Ember can’t physically touch they still find ways to compliment each other. Like when Ember’s mom is trying to get him to light the love smoke stick, he uses her flame in the reflection of his water to light it. And Wade getting his boss to help out so that she can go into the flooded museum to see the Vivisteria tree is just super sweet. When they finally touch it tells me that they learned how to control themselves enough to compliment each other, as opposed to hurting one another.

Element City so obviously used to be just for water and therefore their infrastructure is not meant to support other elements. The world was built for water and it doesn’t support the structures of any other element…how interesting.

Elemental is really a very sweet movie, I think if more people knew what it was really about it would have been a bigger hit at the box office. But the reality is that this story is about family and sacrifice and overcoming circumstances and expectations and it does all of those things very well. As Pixar movies go, are there better movies? Sure but I definitely think that this film is solidly in the top tier of them.