Film Review - Elemental
Images courtesy of The Walt Disney Company.
Pixar has yet again delivered a delightfully entertaining film that blends an engaging story, stunning world-building and a beautifully rich core theme in its latest film, Elemental – truly a film bound to be enjoyed by those of all ages.
Elemental, as the name might suggest, centres on a world in which its inhabitants are beings made up of each of the four elements; earth, air, water and fire. Importantly, although visually appearing vastly different from the world as we know it, the film’s main setting, Element City, has borrowed some social mores and attitudes that we are all sure to recognise. Element City is a thriving, bustling mecca of cosmopolitan activity, a melting pot of success for some, but an insurmountable obstacle for others. The film’s heroine, Ember Lumen, and her mother and father Cindy and Bernie are the people for whom Element City was not an entirely welcoming place. The Lumen’s are Fire people, a sect of the community deemed unfamiliar, scary and an overall nuisance to the rest of the Element residents of this sprawling city. Despite this, the Fire People have thrived in their own way, creating a close community with each other, the centre of which is Bernie Lumen’s shop ‘The Fireplace’, selling all things Fire-related. It has been Bernie’s dream to retire and eventually pass on his life’s work to his daughter Ember, however these long-held plans are quickly disrupted with the appearance of Wade, an emotional, gold-hearted city inspector, who just so happens to be a Water person.
Wade and Ember are the antithesis of one another in every conceivable way: Wade comes from a rich family who have never been discriminated against, Ember comes from a hard-working family for whom Element City could never fully be called home. Wade cries constantly, while Ember has a (quite literally) fiery temper. This makes watching the pair attempt to undo some government citations Wade issues that would close down The Fireplace forever, charmingly entertaining, particularly as the two navigate the visually stunning and extraordinarily layered setting of Element City itself.
As with most Pixar movies of late, such as Turning Red and Soul, Elemental enmeshes within itself highly sophisticated themes, namely an exploration into the immigrant experience, parental sacrifice, and the ‘first generation’ child’s paradox of wanting to captain their own lives, whilst simultaneously hoping not to let their parents down. It is warming to watch Ember and Wade, two people that realistically could extinguish or evaporate the other, slowly allow themselves to be influenced by this new person in their lives, opening their worldview to include people they had never interacted much with before. As the pair begin to trust each other, we learn that in the end there was no danger at all, every element can co-exist peacefully with one another.
I jumped at the chance to review the latest Pixar film, because I knew I was more or less guaranteed a film that would strike the perfect equilibrium of beautiful message and entertaining story. The metaphor of the elements in this film still allows the themes of exclusion, immigration and multiculturalism to shine through clearly, without simultaneously feeling as though you were getting beat over the head with the film’s inner ‘meaning’. Where Elemental shines is in its ability to gently guide you to realise the film’s crux yourself, and in the meantime, present you with vivid characters, fun antics and gorgeous animation along the way.
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Elemental is screening in cinemas from Thursday 15th June. For tickets and more info, click here.