To be honest, this is another movie that I had not looked up much about nor watched the trailer for. I had seen so many billboards around when driving and would see this movie being advertised, but I wouldn’t think much of it. I guess I had been on a too steady diet of R-rated films with swearing and violence, and I think I just realized after a while, I need to go back to my roots and watch some Pixar movies. Pixar always manages to produce movies with powerful and universal messages and most, if not all, of them bring me to tears. When I saw Encanto, I was already having a rough day at work and so the minute I sat down and saw all the beautiful animation, I full-on broke down like a baby. And this wasn’t even five minutes into the film. I was just so blown away by all of the beautiful singing, the colors, everything. And I think after a day of loneliness and stress, I just needed to unwind and watch a good Pixar movie.
Elemental was one of those movies. And honestly, my eyes are exhausted from the serious water works workout it did during this film. Seriously, even just thinking of the movie’s main song by Lauv is almost bringing me to tears. The movie takes place in a bustling and diverse city which is made up of the four elements: fire, water, air and land. A fire couple immigrates from their community of fire people to Element City and like many immigrants, they face challenges when they first arrive. They face housing discrimination because they are fire, and fire burns wood, so the wood people won’t rent to them. And they can’t room with water because they are fire and fire and water aren’t supposed to go together. They also speak Fire-ish, which the customs officer doesn’t understand, so when the couple gives their names the officer, who I think is a tree, says “How about we put Bernie and Cinder as your names on your passport?” Bernie and Cinder finally settle in, and they give birth to their child, Ember. Bernie has big dreams of Ember running the shop when he retires, but on one condition: she needs to overcome her fiery temper. However, this is extremely difficult and it doesn’t come without a lot of training and practice, and Ember finds herself blowing up at customers who take things without paying or when she finds herself working the counter alone and she is dealing with several customers at once. One day, she tries to hold her temper in, and she is dealing with a lot of stressful customers, so she goes into the basement and gets angry and bursts into flames. The water pipes bust and the basement floods, and Ember now has another problem to fix. A water inspector named Wade emerges from the flooding in the basement and tells Ember that she violated a serious inspection code and also finds out that her dad’s shop violates a lot of other health inspection codes, and so Wade tells Ember that her dad’s shop is going to need to shut down. Ember begs him to not get her dad’s shop closed down because it was his dream to have that shop and shutting it down would take away everything he worked so hard for. Wade does his best to let it slide because Ember is furious with him, and water doesn’t want to mess with fire. He also has a serious crush on her and asks her out, but she isn’t interested in being with him. However, as they get to know each other they develop a very beautiful relationship. Cinder and Bernie don’t approve of Wade and Ember’s relationship because he is water and she is fire. When Ember meets Wade’s mom, she is sweet and accepts Ember for who she is, and when one of the glasses breaks, Ember uses her powers to weld the glass together into a beautiful sculpture. Wade’s mom tells her she has an incredible talent and recommends her for a glass making internship but Ember has a hard time believing it because she is focused on fulfilling her dad’s dream of her owning the shop when he retires. However, she ultimately decides to pursue the internship and eventually her parents respect her relationship with Wade and her wanting to pursue her dreams.
One scene I really appreciate and that also moved me to tears was when Wade and Ember are at a sports game and one of the players is losing the shots and everyone is booing him, but Wade feels so much compassion for this player because he knows the guy’s mom is sick, so he literally makes a water wave (doing the wave) and everyone begins to follow him in cheering on the player. I don’t know why that scene moved me so much, but it just did. I also just got really emotional during the song “Steal the Show” by Lauv, which plays during the scenes where Wade and Ember fall in love. Honestly, I am actually tearing up remembering how beautiful the song is. And just how beautiful the movie was. After watching so many movies with violence and heavy themes, I think I just needed a movie that was heartwarming and touching and for kids and family. This movie really hit all of my emotional spots, and oh my gosh I am not kidding I am literally tearing up as I write this blog post because I am remembering how incredibly sweet this movie was. I think it was just really emotional because I am dealing with a crush on someone right now, and seeing Wade crush on Ember and fall in love with her really hit me hard because it reminded me of how I thought of my crush and I being together. I think this is why I love movies because they make me feel less alone in my experiences.
There is also a beautiful and touching feature after the movie where the film’s creator, Peter Sohn, talks about how the film is inspired by his personal experiences. His parents were immigrants from Korea and they faced a lot of challenges: financial, emotional, social. They ran two shops while providing their sons with a living, and Peter also felt conflicted because he wanted to be an artist but that was unheard of in his family. He also dealt with challenges from his parents when he married a white American woman because his grandmother before she passed away told him he needed to marry a Korean woman. Watching this feature after the movie was pretty emotional because it just reminded me that everyone has a story to tell, and movies are an incredible avenue to tell our unique stories so people like me, who don’t know what it’s like to have immigrant parents or immigrate to another country, can understand and learn about these experiences.
Overall, I really loved Elemental. I think if I see it again I might be like Wade and his family because they cry so much (after all, they are water).
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