Elemental (2023)

Rating: 8.5

TL:DR - I love seeing animated movies outshining live-action — and embracing originality and imagination! Pixar’s Elemental is astonishing! It’s top tier Pixar — a special kind of animated film that reminds us why Pixar is the best in the business. Plus: it’s a really heartfelt rom-com! This clever, charming and emotional love story will warm your heart and make you cry! So many emotions, profound thematic storytelling with gorgeous animation. It deserves all the love!

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Film Info:

Premise: In a city where fire, water, land, and air residents live together, a fiery young woman and a go-with-the-flow guy discover something elemental: how much they actually have in common.

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Disney - Pixar

Directed by Peter Sohn

Screenplay by John Hoberg, Kat Likkel & Brenda Hsueh

Story by John Hoberg, Kat Likkel, Brenda Hsueh & Peter Sohn

Cast: Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Ronnie del Carmen, Shila Ommi, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Catherine O’Hara, Mason Wertheimer

Runtime: 1hr 49min

Rating: G

Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Romance

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IMDb Rating: 7.2/10

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 76%

RT Audience Score: 92%

RT Critic Average: 6.5/10

RT Audience Average: 4.5/5

Metacritic Score: 59

CinemaScore: A

Letterboxd: 3.4/5

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Fun Fact: The film is based on director Peter Sohn's life with his parents immigrating to the USA from Korea - not speaking a word of English and settling into the Bronx. Sohn's family also opened up a grocery store names Sohn's Fruits and Vegetables - similar to Ember's family in the film.

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Review:

written by Tyler Park

I am so happy to see animation thriving! I don’t mean financially — unfortunately, most films are struggling to find an audience in theatres these days — I mean in terms of storytelling, and filmmaking, from the perspective of looking at film as an art form. This month we first had the revolutionary, groundbreaking film Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and now we have the astonishing, charming, and emotionally resonant Elemental from Pixar! And wow, was this movie ever a pleasant surprise for me! It‘s a wonderful film — and on top of that, it’s an original story, something we are so severely lacking in this modern cinematic landscape!

To be clear, I am a huge fan of Pixar. I genuinely think they are still one of the greatest studios in Hollywood in terms of the quality of storytelling and production value they deliver to their audiences. They make films for everyone. I always go back to the same message: “Animation is not a genre, it is an art form.” No one better exemplifies this than Pixar. Animated movies do not automatically equal movies made for children, even though some studios would have you believe that. I love that Pixar makes films for everyone, and they just use animation to enhance the rich, emotional, and thematic stories they have written. What makes them stand out even more for me is that for every sequel and franchise movie they make, they make even more original films! And they are some of the only ones in the business committing to original and creative filmmaking — you have to give them huge credit for that! What makes me sad is that over the last few years, Disney forced Pixar to drop their films for no additional charge on Disney+, skipping theatrical releases. Soul, Luca, and Turning Red were fantastic films that deserved so much more than a streaming release, and unfortunately these releases over three years trained audiences to expect to watch Pixar films on Disney+ instead of theatrical. Hence the less than $30 million opening for Elemental. And that breaks my heart, because this is one of the best movies this year, it’s even one of the best Pixar films!

Elemental deserves so much love — it’s a beautiful film that tells a thoughtful immigrant story with themes involving embracing our diverse societies, overcoming differences, and finding belonging and acceptance in the world. Plus… it’s a rom-com! This clever, charming, and emotional love story will warm your heart and make you cry! It isn’t a perfect film, I didn’t even love the first act but once it really focused on the romance and relationship between Ember and Wade the film really started to show why it was special. The relationship between Ember and Wade very much drives the film, and does it well. There’s a montage at the start of act two where the rom-com elements really start to show up, and that was where I fell in love with the film. Ember and Wade are two of the most irresistibly likable characters — which is weird because, at the beginning, there are many reasons not to like either character. However, once you see where both of them are coming from, the way they behave makes so much sense. I also really loved how the film handles diversity and racism in society without holding the audience’s hand too much and still managed to tell a gorgeous story about the generational legacy between a daughter and a father. There are a lot of hard-hitting themes here, and they all work so well and contribute to the plot in really interesting ways. I just thought the script was quite well written and the thematics in this film are some of the strongest in a Pixar film in quite a while.

To get another obvious point out of the way; the animation here is absolutely spectacular. Pixar just knows how to animate their movies — they have the style and what I really liked was the small but complex details that made the world feel even more real, from the way the light reflected off the water people, to the refraction in the air above the fire people’s heads, there were just so many little things I kept noticing that impressed me! If I was to make one note, I think Pixar has indeed mastered this style of animation, but I would love it if they tried to take on other styles at some point, like how Spider-Verse is doing.

The vocal performances were also incredible, and I have to give credit to Pixar for not just hiring big-name cast members to do the voices, but instead hiring actors who are talented with voice-over work and fit the characters better. Leah Lewis and Mamoudou Athie are both great in this and have so much chemistry in their vocal performances. I can’t get over how good the relationship was in this movie, the rom-com elements are fantastic and while it is quite insightful and emotional at times, the dialogue can also be quite funny at times and the actors deliver it so well!

While I love so many of the plot lines, I did have an issue with the MacGuffin element that brings the characters together initially. Every time we cut back to that plot I lost a little bit of interest, so I would’ve liked a slightly different aspect to connect the father-daughter plot and the rom-com plot, but other than that the story is so well told. It is so emotional and made me tear up in multiple instances!

The film really is top-tier Pixar — a special kind of animated film that reminds us why they are the best in the business! It is a huge step up for Peter Sohn after The Good Dinosaur, and I think that is because it is a far more personal story for him. What an excellent narrative on class and one of the most beautifully whimsical designed worlds I've ever seen. The world of Element City definitely has similarities to Zootopia at face value — but this film explores its setting in much more interesting and thematic ways. There are so many emotions and profound thematic storytelling with gorgeous animation. It really tells a beautiful immigrant story about generational legacy, dealing with expectations put on you, finding your own purpose, and embracing our differences and diversity to build a better world. This film truly knocked it out of the park for me and deserves so much love! Go give Elemental a chance in theatres, it is very worth it! I really enjoyed this one!

(How the hell are people more apt to see the lazily written Super Mario Bros Movie that has no real plot, no characterization or development, and no thematic writing, and then not see the richly written, beautifully told Elemental which clearly has so much more effort put into it... it just makes me sad that the better, more original and creative movies don't get the love they deserve.)

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Trailer: