Elemental (2023)

IMDb plot summary: Follows Ember and Wade, in a city where fire-, water-, earth- and air-residents live together.

Directed by Peter Sohn. Starring Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, and Ronnie Del Carmen.

Elemental is a Pixar movie about a world in which elements are our main characters. The story follows a fire girl poised to take over her father's store, when she meets a water boy and everything kind of falls apart. Before I watched Elemental, I listened to a podcast in which somebody reflected that the movie was, at its heart, a romance. And I'm really glad that I saw that before watching this, because that helped me contextualize it. As a romance, it's super sweet, and it absolutely works. I buy the chemistry between the two leads, and I am, of course, always going to be a sucker for a story about somebody sacrificing themselves for their loved ones, so the ending absolutely drew some tears from me. As a story about someone trying to find their way in the world, it's a little bit less compelling, and the world building isn't as robust as I would have hoped. It's clearly trying to leave room for further explorations in sequels, but I'm not sure it stands up to that. It does have some really creative and fun animation exploring just the fire and water worlds, so I enjoyed large pieces of this. It's still better than a lot of the animated stuff that gets turned out for kids, but it is not as exciting as a lot of Pixar movies often are.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Elemental > Sarah, Plain and Tall

Elemental < The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Elemental < Kajaki

Elemental > Imitation of Life (1959)

Elemental > Wristcutters: A Love Story

Elemental > The Black Phone

Elemental > Incendies

Elemental > Love, Life, and Goldfish

Elemental < May December

Elemental < The Tragedy of Macbeth

Elemental < The Family Man

Elemental > The Count of Monte Cristo

Final spot: #1480, or 62%.