The best metaphors retain an air of mystery about them: Why does a man wake up one morning to find he's transformed into a bug? What are the ramifications when it rains continuously in a small village for four years, eleven months, and two days? Why must it take a tragedy between a pair of star-crossed lovers to prove that love is stronger than hate?
It's this last one (referencing Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet," for readers not currently teaching a freshman English class), that's perhaps most closely aligned with the principles of Pixar's latest release "Elemental," uniting an unlikely pair of would-be romantic partners -- in this case, a young woman composed of fire, and a young man of water, who technically can't mix -- as a way of showing how people from different backgrounds (and compositions) can always find a way together if they truly care enough.
To be fair, Pixar has long taken the overarching metaphor as its narrative driving force -- what is "Toy Story," but a representation of what it's like as a parent to have children who eventually outgrow you? -- but in the animation house's best work, the analogy gets buried deep in the background, as a thematic backdrop to a story brimming with vibrant, engaging characters, instead of becoming the dominant, er, element. More recently, in Pixar films like "Seeing Red," and "Luca," the metaphor has begun to take over the primary spot, a situation that tends to render the characters as something more facile, a visual prop to prove the point of the lyric symbolism, but little more.
Such is the fate for the well-meaning but ultimately rote "Elemental," a film that maintains a sloppy grasp of its own basic mechanics, en route to a well-worn story that feels laden down with its own attempts at Deeper Meaning.
There's a city, see, and it's inhabited by various members of different elemental "tribes." There are fire people, and water people, and earth people, and cloud folks (apparently representing air, nevermind the fact that clouds are actually composed of water vapor). Everyone seems to get along reasonably well, save for the fire denizens, who are looked on by the other three as potentially dangerous (which they actually are), and, as a result, often unwanted. As a result, the fire folk all keep to the one section of the city that best caters to their particular needs, keeping clear of the elevated trains, which run on currents of water that often sploosh to each side of the rails, and doing a lot less intermingling than the other, more water-friendly types.
We come to meet a sweet fire family: Bernie Lumen (Ronnie Del Carmen), the aging patriarch, and owner of a mom-and-pop convenience store called the "Fire Shop," which sells various items and foods from his native land; his wife, Cinder (Shila Omni), a (sigh) matchmaker, and interpreter of secret scents that indicate whether love is in the air between couples; and, finally, Ember (Leah Lewis), the couples' lone child, now a young (fire)woman, with a bit of a rage problem, and who stands to inherit the shop when her parents finally retire, as long as she can keep her fury in check.
Given a chance to show her parents what she can do running the shop herself the morning of a busy red-dot sale, Ember grows more and more aggrieved with the customers until she has to take flight to the basement to release her fury in a fiery explosion. This leaves the rickety plumbing of the place, installed by hand by her father many years ago, weakened and leaking, until a veritable gusher of water shoots onto the floor, dragging in with it, as it happens, the fluid body of Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie), a water inspector for the city, who sees the haphazard manner of the piping, and feels compelled to write the place up for its numerous violations (as to show he's a good-hearted sort, he openly sobs at having to write these citations).
This, in turn, would shut the place down, a result Ember, very much wanting to prove her capability, cannot accept. With Wade's generous help, she takes her case up to the city department, headed by a bawdy cloud-woman, Gale (Wendi McLendon-Covey), who at first discounts her arguments, but comes to appreciate Ember's dedication.
Along the way, Ember and Wade, working together to figure out why water, of all things, keeps coming into Firetown, begin to take a shine to each other, despite the fact that their specific composition would seem to preclude their actually touching each other, let alone winning Ember's old-school father over to the idea.
The film does have some things going for it, including some truly beautiful art -- in a more subtle and affecting manner, the combination of Ember's glowing flames, and Wade's churning water, produces gorgeous, rippling light -- and a generous spirit of inclusion (it's difficult to call out a film dedicated to the power of immigration and the beauty of co-mingling cultures), but despite its good intentions, it suffers from a glaring lack of attention to detail.
Take Ember, for one example: In some early scenes, it is shown that her flame can burn anything it touches (she has to be careful when riding on a subway car not to graze past any of the other inhabitants, or touch anything flammable); in others, she can hold onto paper, sit in chairs, and otherwise engage with people and objects very much flammable, as required by the script.
Not that we need a full explanation, but the city itself is also sort of inexplicable: Why it exists in the first place, whom it serves, and what fire people get out of being there, given that they can't intermingle with anyone else there, and apparently can't have jobs outside their own meager sector, is really anyone's guess.
In these ways, the basic premise of the story itself is suspect, based on a desire for things to fall into place without actually taking the time to make sure they do. It calls to mind another animated film concerning a massive city of mixed populations, but the much more accomplished "Zootopia" took the time to explain how everything works together, and showed the ways in which all the different species coexisted, at least enough to quash the most immediate questions a viewer might have. This film, written by John Hoberg, Kat Likkel and Brenda Hsueh, leaves far too many things up in the air to feel cohesive. For all the punny word play ("Kiss me, I'm Firish" reads one shop placard; another store in Firetown is called "Pottery Burn"), it leaves too much unexamined in order to hurry along with its story.
In short, the film's message is more than welcome, but the cellophane package it's wrapped in, to utilize yet another metaphor, is too transparent to be more than a brief diversion.
'Elemental
80 Cast: (voices of) Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Ronnie del Carmen, Shila Ommi, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Catherine OHara, Mason Wertheimer, Joe Pera
Director: Peter Sohn
Rating: PG
Running time: 1 hour, 49 minutes
Playing theatrically