Elemental movie review: Star-crossed love story about diversity, expectations and finding your true self is cute, but utterly predictable

3.5/5

Story: As the earliest immigrants from Fire City in Element City, Bernie (Ronnie Del Carmen) and Cinder (Shila Ommi) are all too aware how unwelcome their destructive fiery nature is for the rest of the inhabitants, namely water, earth and air. The fire people set up home in a part of the city they call Fire Town, where Bernie and Cinder run a shop called Fireplace, which he hopes to pass on to his daughter Ember (Leah Lewis) someday. Unlike Bernie, who is cool as a cucumber even with the most irksome customer, it doesn’t take Ember much to literally blow her fuse and on one occasion that her temper gets the better of her, the shop is slapped with a bunch of citations and a notice to close the business. Can Ember and her new-found friend and city inspector Wade (Mamoudou Athie), who happens to be a water element, find a solution to her problems, while also addressing their chemistry?

Review: A film by a studio best known for gems like Wall-E, Brave, Ratatouille, Luca, Coco, and so many more, is bound to generate a lot of curiosity and expectation. But most of the initial reviews of Disney Pixar’s latest, Elemental, which debuted at Cannes and then released in the USA a week ahead of the rest of the world, were far from encouraging. I wonder why, though, because Elemental is not as bad as it is being made out to be. It is predictable from the word go and the characters don’t tug at your heartstrings, but the narrative is breezy and quite cute.

Director Peter Sohn, who made The Good Dinosaur earlier, returns with a story about an immigrant couple and their heir apparent, whose only goal in life is to be a good daughter and live up to the dreams and expectations her parents have for her. Her heart, of course, lies elsewhere, but she is willing to sacrifice her dreams so as not to disappoint her parents, who gave up a lot to give her a better life. If that isn’t a dilemma big enough, Peter’s protagonist Ember, also finds herself falling for a water element guy – Wade. Problem is, elements don’t mix, especially two that have the power to destroy each other.

These are sentiments that most immigrants, and Asians, in particular, can relate to, whether it is about the need to live out the aspirations that parents set for you, or the conditioning to not mix with people of different socio-economic-religious backgrounds – everything hits home and how. And that’s probably why the West has been hating the film – they just don’t get it. At its core, though, the film is about following your heart, whether it is in matters of love or where your passions truly lie in.

Verdict: The problem that I had with Elemental is that it didn’t leave me with a feel-good movie vibe. Wade and Ember are not characters that will stay with you when you walk out of the theatre. It’s almost as if it’s got a heart, but remains soulless. Make no mistake, Elemental is a decent one-time watch, just don’t expect much more.