Taglines: Opposites react.
Elemental centers on hot-tempered Ember Lumen (Leah Lewis, of The Half of It), a second-generation immigrant who works as an assistant in her father’s bodega shop. Fire people who emigrated from Fireland, from whence they brought spicy food and rigid cultural traditions of honor and lineage.
İmber and her father Útrí dár ì Bùrdì (Ronnie del Carmen)—though he and his wife Fâsh ì Síddèr (Shila Ommi) had their names Anglicized to Bernie and Cinder at the “Elemental” equivalent of Ellis Island—have a close relationship as he readies her to take over the family business. Ember, though, is questioning whether or not she truly wants to inherit the store, as her beloved “ashfa” says he expects, or whether her gifts—such as the ability to heat a hot-air balloon and mold glass with her hands—might lead her in another direction.
Unable to control her emotions, which can take her from red-hot into a more ominous purple shade, Ember one day ruptures a pipe in her father’s shop, at which point city inspector Wade (Mamoudou Athie) gushes in. Wade’s been investigating the city’s dilapidated canal system, searching for the source of a leak that keeps flooding Ember’s basement but imperils all of Firetown.
Determined to keep her father’s business from going under, Ember pursues and then quickly joins forces with Wade. As romance sparks between the two, they make for a particularly odd couple given one of the film’s less-than-convincing rules: that “elements don’t mix,” for reasons both practical and parochial, in Element City. Ember might extinguish Wade, while he could douse her flame, but their inevitably steamy romance is moreso forbidden because her father would never approve, setting up “Elemental” as an interracial love story, the kind Pixar hasn’t yet told with human characters.
Elemental (subtitled Forces of Nature in some countries) 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 Sohn, John Hoberg, Kat Likkel, and Brenda Hsueh,[a] with Pete Docter serving as executive producer.
The 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, and Catherine O’Hara. 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).
Elemental (2023)
Directed by: Peter Sohn
Starring: Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Ronnie del Carmen, Shila Ommi
Wendi McLendon-Covey, Catherine O’Hara, Mason Wertheime, Ronobir Lahiri, Wilma Bonet, Joe Pera, Jeff LaPensee. Ben Morris
Screenplay by: John Hoberg, Kat Likkel, Brenda Hsueh
Production Design by: Don Shank
Cinematography by: David Bianchi, Jean-Claude Kalache
Film Editing by: Stephen Schaffer
Art Direction by: Jennifer Chang
Music by: Thomas Newman
MPAA Rating: PG for some peril, thematic elements and brief language.
Distributed by: Walt Disney Pictures
Release Date: May 27, 2023 (Cannes), June 16, 2023 (United States)
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