Ember Lumen, a temperamental teenager, grew up in Elemental City, a multi-ethnic city where the inhabitants are made of fire and water, earth and air. The city, mostly aquatic, is intolerant of migrants, especially the ardent ones like Ember, who never miss an opportunity to humiliate and ‘cool down’. Completely dedicated to her old father, one step away from her retirement, she has decided to take over from him in the family business, a shop selling ‘ethnic’ products frequented by demanding customers who never fail to annoy her. During a fit of anger, the umpteenth of hers, which makes walls and ducts shake, an anomalous wave delivers to her address Wade Ripple, a shy and sentimental gay toilet bowl, full of good intentions and tears that she sheds profusely at the first emotion. Incompatible by the laws of Elemental, the two antagonistic elements will establish a connection that will soon turn into love.
Somewhere between Inside Out and Zootopia, Elemental meets fire and water against the backdrop of acceptance of difference.
Behind the spell of colors, Pixar never stops sending universal messages, celebrating tolerance and inclusion. The new product then focuses on the struggle of the children of immigrants to find a place in society and in a city controlled by a majority aquatic population, where the flamboyant are marginalized by the other elements, forced into the poorest neighborhoods and banned from some public places . But the budding sentiment between Ember (Leah Lewis) and Wade (Mamoudou Athie), she fire, he water, will challenge the world they live in.
Peter Sohn, director and screenwriter of other Pixar products (Arlo’s journey), treasures his background and integrates his personal story into the story. Son of Korean immigrants, he puts his experience at the service of his characters, who arrived years earlier from Fireland, a distant and abandoned land where he lost everything. Owners of a small business, Ember’s parents ‘fervently’ hope that her daughter will take the reins but things will go otherwise, because the new Pixar heroine burns with a thousand fires and has dreams to spare. Against all odds, it will be a creature of water to turn it on. Falling in love with opposites represents a new challenge for the animators of the ‘lamp’.
Pushing the limits of realism even further, without ever giving up a dose of humor, Elemental progressively develops a feeling that ends up taking over everything. A love story at the level of a child and an adult, to which the film speaks more deeply and in filigree. The ‘double reading’ mischievously crosses the dialogues, making the adults smile and passing unnoticed by the little ones.
Pixar, which until now had mainly explored friendship and family, tackles love for the first time, evoked only with the platonic romance of WALL-E’s robots. The loving feeling is at the center of the intrigue and seeks a way to fulfill itself, because Ember and Wade love each other from a distance, remain prudent and alert, avoid contact as they can, try as best they can to overcome their attraction.