Elemental (2023 film)

Elemental
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Peter Sohn
Screenplay by	John Hoberg Kat Likkel Brenda Hsueh
Story by	Peter Sohn John Hoberg Kat Likkel Brenda Hsueh
Produced by	Denise Ream
Starring	Leah Lewis Mamoudou Athie Ronnie del Carmen Shila Ommi Wendi McLendon-Covey Catherine O'Hara Mason Wertheimer Joe Pera Matt Yang King
Cinematography	David Bianchi Jean-Claude Kalache
Edited by	Stephen Schaffer
Music by	Thomas Newman
Production companies	Walt Disney Pictures Pixar Animation Studios
Distributed by	Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Release dates	May 27, 2023 (2023-05-27) (Cannes) June 16, 2023 (2023-06-16) (United States)
Running time	109 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$200 million

Elemental is a 2023 American computer-animated romantic comedy-drama film produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. Directed by Peter Sohn and produced by Denise Ream, it was written by John Hoberg and Kat Likkel, Brenda Hsueh, and Sohn with Pete Docter serving as executive producer. The overall 27th feature film produced by the studio, the film features the voices of Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Ronnie del Carmen, Shila Ommi, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Catherine O'Hara, Mason Wertheimer, Joe Pera, and Matt Yang King. Set in a world inhabited by anthropomorphic elements of nature, the story follows fire element Ember Lumen (Lewis) and water element Wade Ripple (Athie), who meet and fall in love after Wade is summoned by a plumbing accident at a convenience store owned by Ember's father Bernie (Del Carmen).

Following the release of The Good Dinosaur (2015), Sohn began working on the project when the idea first started. He pitched the concept to Pixar to develop Elemental based on the idea of whether fire and water could ever connect or not. Elemental draws inspiration from Sohn's youth, growing up as the son of immigrants in New York City during the 1970s, highlighting the city's distinct cultural and ethnic diversity, while the story is inspired by romantic films, like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), Moonstruck (1987), and Amélie (2001). Rather than visit countries for research, the team spent many hours watching POV city tours on YouTube like Venice and Amsterdam for inspiration. The animation tools were utilized to design the visual effects and appearance of each character, particularly Ember and Wade. Production on Elemental lasted for seven years, both in the studio and at the filmmakers' homes, with the story being finished remotely. Thomas Newman composed and conducted the film's original score, marking his fourth collaboration with Pixar.

Elemental debuted out of competition as the closing film at the 76th Cannes Film Festival on May 27, 2023, and is scheduled to be theatrically released in the United States on June 16, in RealD 3D, 4DX, and Dolby Cinema formats. The film received mixed reviews from critics.

Plot

Bernie and Cinder Lumen immigrate to Element City by ship. They face early struggles as they are met with xenophobic views about fire by other elements, but eventually carve out their place in the city. After the birth of Ember, they build their own convenience store, which became the Fireplace. Years later, Ember grows up working in the shop with Bernie and dreams of taking over once her father retires, but must first contend with her fiery temper.

One day, Bernie finally allows Ember to control the shop. However, it becomes too much for her and she rushes away to the basement to avoid losing it in front of the customers. Her rage results in a broken water pipe flooding the basement, accidentally summoning Wade Ripple, a health inspector. He threatens to shut down the store for its faulty piping. Ember tries to ask Wade not to report her family to his employer Gale Cumulus, but Wade escapes. Soon a chase ensues, with Ember going outside the fire district and into Element City. She catches up to Wade in City Hall office to be lenient on some of the violations. When Wade tries to convince overgrown earth element bureaucrat Fern Grouchwood, Ember accidentally exploded in her anger.

When Ember and Wade go to Cyclone Stadium, they find Gale, who tells Ember that if they can fix a hole in a dam at Fire Town, then she would not shut down the shop. Wade attempts to cheer on Lutz to allow the Windbreakers to win the airgame. Ember and Wade begin to fall in love while they walk around Element City. He invites her to meet his family, who live in a luxury apartment building that is flowing with water everywhere, which makes it difficult for Ember to enter. When they head back to Fire Town, they manage to find the crack in the dam and are able to patch it up. In return, Gale not only decides to keep the store open, but also allows Ember to go underwater to find her favorite flower as well. Although she is happy that she sees her favorite flower, Ember discovered that the bubble is getting pop out, allowing Wade to escape. As Ember shares a romantic dance with Wade, who finally touched her hands, she must return back to the Fireplace.

When Ember is about to take the reins of her father's shop, Wade shows up and tells her he loves her. However, not wanting to disappoint her father, she rejects him. Her father decides to not retire after finding out that she caused the faulty pipes to happen and has fallen in love with Wade. This causes her temper to burst, accidentally breaking the glass meant to cover the crack in the dam. Ember tries to find Wade and help save the Blue Flame, which has been in her family for generations. They are soon trapped in a room, causing Wade to evaporate from the heat. Ember, thinking that Wade is dead, finally tells her father that she does not want to run the shop, with Bernie telling her that she was their dream. Remembering a game that she played with Wade's family, she manages to bring Wade back to life, finally confessing her love for him, and they share a kiss.

Months later, Wade and Ember head off to a place where Ember can study glassmaking, saying goodbye to their families.

Voice cast

• Leah Lewis as Ember Lumen, a tough, quick-witted fire element who loves working at her family's convenience store in Fire Town, but has trouble controlling her explosive temper. If she touched water, she would be extinguished, so she holds an umbrella to guard herself. Ember is described as "relatable and likable, not scary and terrifying". To reflect her smoky voice by designing her, Lewis was chosen due to her role in The Half of It (2020).
  • Clara Lin Ding voices young Ember, while Reagan To voices teenage Ember.
• Mamoudou Athie as Wade Ripple, a fun, sappy water element who is making his own choices and works as an inspector living in Element City. In terms of his density and movement, Wade is a lot heavier, and his body is more fluid and wavy than Ember's body is. He is described as "very emotional and cries at the drop of a hat". Athie based his performance on his own ability to cry.
• Ronnie del Carmen as Bernie Lumen, Ember's father, Cinder's husband, and owner of their family's convenience store in Fire Town who plans to retire to allow his daughter to run the convenience store. He is distrustful of water elements.
• Shila Ommi as Cinder Lumen, Ember's mother and Bernie's wife who is also distrustful of water elements.
• Mason Wertheimer as Clod, a young, street-smart earth element and the Lumens' neighbor who has a crush on Ember. Wertheimer made his feature film debut following the mockumentary podcast series Past My Bedtime (2022).
• Wendi McLendon-Covey as Gale Cumulus, an air element with a big personality and Wade's employer. Her surname is not credited in the film, but is mentioned in My Busy Books.
• Catherine O'Hara as Brook Ripple, Wade and Alan's mother and Harold's sister who is very welcoming to Ember in a luxury apartment building.
• Ronobir Lahiri as Harold, Brook's brother and Wade and Alan's uncle.
• Wilma Bonet as Flarrietta
• Joe Pera as Fern Grouchwood, an overgrown earth element bureaucrat who works at City Hall.
• Matt Yang King as:
  • Alan Ripple, Wade's older brother, Lake's oldest sibling and Eddy's husband.
  • Lutz, an avid airball player who plays for the Windbreakers at Cyclone Stadium.
  • Earth Pruner
• Jeff LaPensee as Sparkler Customer
• Ben Morris as Wood Immigration Official. His name pin and the subtitles of the film's promotional campaign reveal his name to be C. C. Stump.
• Jonathan Adams as Flarry
• Alex Kapp as: 
  • Customer
  • Delivery Person
  • Earth Landlord
• P.L. Brown as Doorman

Although they were credited as additional voices, other members of Wade's family in the film include Innocent Onanovie Ekakitie, who appears as Marco and Polo Ripple, two of Wade's nephews, Krysta Gonzales appears as Eddy Ripple, Alan's wife, and Wade and Lake's sister-in-law, Ava Kai Hauser appears as Lake Ripple, Wade and Alan's youngest siblings, and Ghibli's love interest; and Maya Aoki Tuttle appears as Ghibli, Lake's girlfriend.

Additional voices in the film include Dylan Buccieri, Assaf Cohen, Jessica DiCicco, Terri Douglas, Karen Huie, Arif S. Kinchen, Austin Madison, Cole Massie, Scott Menville, Alisha Mullally, Fred Tatasciore, Kari Wahlgren, and Secunda Wood.

Production

Development

Peter Sohn, who previously directed the feature film The Good Dinosaur (2015) and the short film Partly Cloudy (2009), pitched the concept to Pixar to develop Elemental based on the idea of whether fire and water could ever connect or not. Sohn also says the idea for the film was inspired by his experiences as the son of immigrants in New York City in the 1970s. He stated: "My parents emigrated from Korea in the early 1970s and built a bustling grocery store in the Bronx." He also stated: "We were among many families who ventured to a new land with hopes and dreams — all of us mixing into one big salad bowl of cultures, languages, and beautiful little neighborhoods. That's what led me to Elemental."

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Sohn says the film's seven-year development period with Elemental is closely tied to his relationship with his family, when the idea first started, following the release of The Good Dinosaur in 2015. It is also revealed that Ember was born in Elemental City, but grew up in a fire town, since the neighborhoods are sort of split up in different ways. He stated: "I am quite emotional about getting the characters and the story out for sure." He also stated: "This movie is about thanking your parents and understanding their sacrifices. My parents both passed away during the making of this thing. And so, it is hugely emotional, and I'm still processing a lot of it."

Sohn stated at D23: The Official Disney Fan Club: "The concept of the city itself started off with Ember." He also stated: "We thought, 'What's the best city we can build to support Ember's journey of identity and belonging?' It started by thinking about a city that would be hard for fire, and so we based it off of water. The idea is that Water got to this area first, and then Earth came, so it became a delta. Then, they built a water infrastructure with water canals and elevated water channels everywhere, making it even tougher for Ember. Then, Air came in after that, and Fire was one of the last groups to come into the city." Ember and Wade have chemistry, despite the differences. When Sohn first pitched the story and started developing it, he asked himself: "What's fire?" Sohn also stated: "People can see it as a temper. People can see it as passion. As a practical thing, fire burns and sparks—but what does it mean to burn bright? There are all these ingredients to what we already perceive as fire, and that started to form Ember's personality. It's the same thing for Wade. Water can be transparent. What does that mean? He wears his emotions on his sleeve. He goes with the flow. That helped form these personalities that were already pretty opposite, and then we had to find that Venn diagram of where they overlapped. That's the hopeful magic. I hope people can buy into the sparks, the chemical reaction, that could form a relationship."

On May 16, 2022, Pixar announced a new film titled Elemental, with the anthropomorphic classical elements of fire, water, air, and earth as its central theme, with Sohn directing and Denise Ream producing. Sohn and Ream reunite after having previously worked together on The Good Dinosaur. On September 9, 2022, during the D23 Expo, Sohn, Ream, and Pete Docter presented a first look at the film. "Our story is based on the classic elements — fire, water, land, and air. Some elements mix with each other, and some don't," Sohn stated. "What if these elements were alive?" Shortly after the unfinished animation footage, a clip was screened, showing Ember and Wade on a date, walking through a park where Wade tries to impress Ember by running across water, sliding, and creating a romantic rainbow.

Production of the film was completed on March 24, 2023, after the final frame was approved, and seven years were spent on it, both in the studio and at the filmmakers' homes. According to story artist Jason Katz, the team finished their story while working remotely from home. Similarly, Sohn had tears in his eyes when completing.

Writing

Turning Red (2022) creative consultant Brenda Hsueh was hired to write the screenplay. Ultimately, John Hoberg and Kat Likkel and Hsueh received "screenplay by" credit, while Sohn, Hoberg and Likkel, and Hsueh received "story by" credit.

Sohn cited romantic films like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), Moonstruck (1987), You've Got Mail (1998), Amélie (2001), My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002), and The Big Sick (2017) as particular influences when he enjoyed leaning into the rom-com as a storytelling genre. Sohn used to doodle the periodic table in high school as an early form of expression with the movie's genesis, saying: "There was this funny drawing that I remember discovering about like a fire and a water character, and that triggering a whole lot of different ideas, and I just couldn't stop drawing these new, little things."

For the language of the fire elements, David J. Peterson, who has constructed languages for Game of Thrones and Dune (2021), created "Firish" based on fire sounds that are part of Ember's family.

Casting

On September 9, 2022, during the D23 Expo, Leah Lewis and Mamoudou Athie were revealed to have been cast in the leading voice roles of Ember and Wade, respectively.

When the full-length trailer was released on March 28, 2023, more cast members, including Ronnie del Carmen, Shila Ommi, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Catherine O'Hara, Mason Wertheimer, and Joe Pera, were announced.

When designing Ember and Wade, Sohn knew that he wanted the characters voices to reflect their elements: for Ember, a smoky voice, and Wade, a cooler one. Lewis was picked because of her role in The Half of It (2020). Sohn spoke on her performance in the 2020 feature, saying that "she could be hot-tempered, but still very appealing", and stated: "She had a vulnerability in her voice that also she could straddle with being so sincere and authentic." With Athie, it was his role in the 2019 miniseries Oh Jerome, No and his ability to cry that won over the director. Sohn described a cry he made at a point in the series as "sincere, but hilarious", and added, "Mamoudou has such a compassionate soul that when he was crying, you just went with him in it."

On May 30, 2023, MotoGP rider Francesco Bagnaia was announced to be voicing a character named Pecco, after his nickname. This is the second time a motorsports figure had voiced a character in Pixar's films after Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr. in international dubs of Lightyear (2022).

Inspiration

According to Variety, at the Disney Content Showcase in Singapore on November 30, 2022, Sohn says that some of the inspiration came from his real-life family and marriage. He showed a picture of him as a child with his parents, saying, "Maybe it's because when I was a kid, I really didn't appreciate or understand what it meant to be an immigrant, to come to the U.S., and all the hard work that they did to give my brother and me our lives. That was one big nugget that was just sitting with me. On the other side, I married someone that wasn't Korean, and there was a lot of culture clash with that in my world. And that brought to me to this idea of finding opposites. And the question of what if fire fell in love with water came. As an animator, what could be a fun world to play with… so the fire and water is one thing. But then tying that to culture clash, was part of that metaphor. And then in that world, all of a sudden this idea of sacrifice, and understanding what our parents had given started to make the soup of what this film is." He also talks about culture clash and diversity, "It has been the struggle of my life for sure understanding my place and what have I assimilated or my identity being a bifurcated identity. It's always been there, I assume that it'll be always a part of some amount of storytelling – having that kind of that diversity. Will it be a major thing? I don't know. But it's been a part of my life. And I love trying to reflect what the teams that we've worked with their lives and our lives into the work that we do."

Sohn also showed footage from the film at the Disney Content Showcase and stated that "The film is about our differences that bring us together, but it is a love story. Hopefully, the audiences will get a deeper understanding of the loss in their lives between the partners, the friends or family."

Sohn stated that the portrayal of Element City was inspired by many earlier live-action films, such as Roman Holiday.

When addressed about similarities, Sohn denied that Elemental is inspired by Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005–08), despite their shared concept of personifying classical elements. Sohn stated: "No, it wasn't a touchstone, but I love the show. I saw it with my kids and it's great, but we're so different from it. There's no martial arts in our world. There's not anything like that. It's this city story with the romance, and this family drama. But I do appreciate the connection that people are making just 'cause they love that and hopefully they can love this, too." Sohn also stated:

Growing up, I always saw my parents a certain way, but then when I hit my 20s and got a real job versus working at my family shop, I saw them as people. That shift from parents to people affected me a great deal. All the stories they told me of their journey here I took for granted until I was like, 'Oh my God, they did this without speaking the language. They did this with no money. My dad was a hotdog cart guy and he made all this. I could never do that.' My empathy grew for them.

Animation and design

Element City was modeled after New York City as a series of immigrant neighborhoods composed of organic materials that would complement each element. An example would be Fire Town, which was constructed with ceramic, metal, and brick. Production designer Don Shank says "design ideas inspired new technology, which inspired new design." Sohn noted that he "went into more detail about how the design and tech process went for designing Ember and Wade." He believed personifying elements was a difficult challenge, although he declared that air was not nearly as difficult to portray as fire and water, having already personified clouds in Partly Cloudy. The character Wade Ripple is incredibly complex, with the biggest challenge being his transparency through creating visual effects. In order to make him transparent enough, the animators needed to find some middle ground for how to create the character.

The set designers at the studio looked to cities like Venice and Amsterdam for inspiration. The water canals and the buildings that surround cities have immense detail and thought put into them. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in which most of the production took place, the production team of the film was unable to travel to these cities for research, so they spent many hours watching POV city tours on YouTube to get inspiration for Element City. To feel less like an alien version of real-world cities, production designer Don Shank and his team brainstormed the evolution of elemental beings and their civilization.

Over 151,000 cores were used for Elemental in three large rooms on the Pixar campus, making it a massive amount of computing power compared to previous Pixar feature films, due to Pixar having to upgrade and buy more computers for this film; for example, Toy Story (1995) had 294 cores, Monsters, Inc. (2001) had 672 cores, and Finding Nemo (2003) had 923 cores.

Music

On February 7, 2023, Thomas Newman was confirmed to compose and conduct the original score for Elemental. It marks Newman's fourth collaboration with the studio after Finding Nemo (2003), WALL-E (2008), and Finding Dory (2016), as well as his first Pixar film not to be directed by Andrew Stanton. Ari "Lauv" Leff was collaborated with Newman to create the original song called "Steal the Show" being released on June 5, 2023 as a single.

Release

Elemental debuted out of competition as the closing film at the 76th Cannes Film Festival on May 27, 2023, followed by a worldwide premiere on June 10, 2023, at Tribeca Festival. In Australia, it premiered on June 12, 2023, at the Sydney Film Festival. The film is scheduled to be theatrically released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures in the United States on June 16, 2023, in RealD 3D, 4DX, and Dolby Cinema formats. It will be accompanied by Dug Days special short film Carl's Date in theaters, marking the first Pixar film to be preceded by a Pixar-produced theatrical short film since Bao (2018), which was theatrically released with Incredibles 2 (2018). On February 16, 2023, following the commercial failures of Lightyear and Walt Disney Animation Studios' Strange World (both 2022), Disney reportedly considered extending the theatrical windows for both Elemental and Walt Disney Animation Studios' Wish in hopes of bringing families back to theaters.

The first thirty minutes of footage of the film were shown during an early press event at the studio on March 28, 2023. It was positively received by critics for its worldbuilding, animation, and characters. The first twenty minutes of footage of the film were previewed in 3D at CinemaCon on April 26, 2023. It was positively received by critics, who appreciated its tackling themes of racism and xenophobia head-on of the movie.

Marketing

Following the project announcement, the first look concept art of the film was released on May 16, 2022. Nicole Clark for Polygon said fans are "pointing out the similarities to the Fireboy and Watergirl series of games, six in total, developed by Oslo Albet." Following the voice cast announcement, a first look image and an exclusive teaser poster were released on September 9, 2022, during the 2022 D23 Expo Presentation. The teaser trailer was released on November 17, 2022, set to Bakar's "Hell N Back". It depicts an original scene where a vast subway train approaches on a waterway with Ember being entered at Element City and then meets Wade who apologizes for accidentally releases a water droplet on her hand after her headphones dropped. Similar to most of Pixar's teaser trailers, the scene was not present in the final film release. Jeremy Mathai of /Film commented positively of the footage, saying it "looks wonderfully rendered and irresistibly charming." An official full-length trailer was released on March 28, 2023, set to Astral's "High Five". Charles Pulliam-Moore of The Verge commented positively, saying that "the movie's visuals are as imaginative as they are delightful", while noting that its "tough to say whether Elemental's take on beats from Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) will land with audiences, especially considering how some of its characters seem prone to destroying one another simply because of how their physical forms interact."

The film was also promoted on the season 21 finale of the ABC singing competition, American Idol, where the main characters, Ember and Wade, are seeing cheering in the audience after Iam Tongi was crowned the winner. A sneak peek was shown immediately after the conclusion of the show.

A series of books based on the film was published in May 2023, including novelizations, short stories, a sticker album, a behind-the-scenes book, and coloring books, while the graphic novel is scheduled to be published on August 29, 2023. A line of action figures and toy packs by Mattel were gifted, while visiting the studios for the film's press day. It was available for the following month.

Reception

Box office projections

In the United States and Canada, Elemental will be released alongside The Flash and The Blackening, and is projected to gross $35–40 million from 4,000 theaters in its opening weekend.

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 75% of 110 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.40/10. The website's consensus reads: "Elemental may not satisfy as fully as the greatest Pixar pictures, but it remains a solid story told with dazzling visual flair." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 59 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.

Ben Croll of TheWrap wrote, "With story beats and character turns that strain well beyond familiarity, Elemental matches formal adventure with storytelling timidity. Here is a new spin on the old formula, livened up by advances in technology and delivered with real artistry. The film is full of complex and volatile parts, all held together in the most elemental of containers." Dirk Libbey of CinemaBlend gave it 4 stars out of 5 and wrote in his review, "People falling in love in animated films is certainly nothing new; it happens all the time. However, we're never seen a major animation studio like Pixar produce such a purely romantic film as Elemental. And yes, you will cry." Siddhant Adlakha of IndieWire gave the film a B, and wrote in his review, "Despite its confused and overstuffed worldbuilding, Elemental has enough charming moments to get by, even if its meaning lies less in its ill-conceived immigrant saga, and more in the personal drama that lives a few layers beneath it."

Jordan Mintzer from The Hollywood Reporter stated, "Had Pixar perhaps taken more risks with that plotline, they might have pleased a smaller demographic than such a project requires to be profitable, but they might also have delivered a movie on par with some of their best work. Instead, the elements all fit perfectly into place — so much so that the creative flames are doused, and we’re left without much of an impression." Screen Daily's Tim Grierson noted that the film "contains hints of the studio's wit and poignancy while lacking the inspired execution that once seemed so effortless." According to Dan Kois of Slate, the world of Element City is beautifully created with well-defined rules, but the film, which underwent significant reworking, lacks the sharpness of jokes, earned twists, and purposeful decoration that were characteristic of Pixar's previous works, and fails to create excitement between the main characters. Kois states that the allegorical conflict of Ember doesn't resonate strongly compared to a previous Pixar film, Turning Red, which handles immigrant family life with more specificity and creativity. He criticizes the film's messy metaphorical world, in which the portrayal of different elemental groups, their accents, and cultural traits seems muddled and irrelevant, and with imprecise ethnic corollaries. He thinks the film marks a potential shift in Pixar's tried-and-true formula, and suggests that Pixar may need to innovate and reinvent itself to regain its former success.

External links

• Official website
• Elemental at IMDb