Elemental became a stealth hit, and I credit the water people’s hair

Of all 2023’s surprise cinematic success stories — like Barbie The mega-successful are outgrossed Avatar: The Way of Water to become the year’s biggest box-office hit to date, or Cocaine BearThe $125 million dollar film is doing much better than it did in American theatres Shazam sequel — nothing’s been quite as surprising as Pixar’s ElementalQuietly bucking all odds, the movie became a surprise hit. Initially and widely dismissed as a flop after a poor opening weekend, Pixar’s latest lingered in multiplexes for months while other movies rapidly came and went, often hitting digital release before the butter on moviegoers’ popcorn had cooled. After making more than $400 million in the theaters, it was released on Disney Plus for a “record-breaking” premiere weekend.

It is me who owns the hair.

I’m not being entirely facetious here. ElementalIt is a fantasy on immigration and assimilation that was inspired by Peter Sohn’s family. The metaphors used are about people from earth, air and water trying to coexist in one city. There are a lot of reasons it might have caught viewers’ imaginations enough that they turned it into a word-of-mouth hit, from the relatable protagonist (Ember, an ambitious but hot-tempered young fire woman trying to carry on her family’s legacy) to the unlikely love story.

But it’s also a deeply flawed movie. ElementalThe story is centered around a implausible, unpersonal battle between municipal bureaucrats, distracting from their more personal conflicts and leaving them fighting over narrative space. The middle section sags, as Ember chases weepy, weird water person Wade around their city, trying to appeal a report he filed to the city about a plumbing violation at her father’s store. When you stop to consider it, the basic setup of the story raises many confusing questions. Wade makes for a very odd romantic lead. Entirely appropriately for a water person, he’s mercurial, inconsistent, and kind of a drip.

But c’mon, look at his hair.

Like so many Pixar movies — including Sohn’s previous directorial project, The Good Dinosaur — ElementalIt is an animation spectacle, both for its large-scale animations and its small animation details. On the smallest scale, there’s always something thought-through and cleverly realized happening on screen.

Some of it’s in the small background elements, like the posters for Ember’s ancestral home country, Fireland, on the walls of her parents’ shop, or their magazine rack, which reads “Magma-zines.” Some of it is in aspects of the characters themselves. You can study any character. Elemental, and you’ll catch amazing little subtleties, like the way the fire people have clothing woven from fireproof materials like metal and glass. (One cantankerous shop customer is wearing what appears to be a knitted cap, but on close inspection, it’s made of chainmail links.)

Personally, I couldn’t get enough of the water people’s hair, and the way it’s constantly in motion. When I first watched the movie, I struggled to relate to Wade because of his sudden, cartoonish disintegration into rivers of tear or inability to hold still or listen for more than five seconds. But I still loved the image of his flowing hair.

It’s a wonder of perpetual watery churn, with shifting bubbles giving it texture as it turns a kind of mussed comb-over into an endlessly cycling backward waterfall. It’s relaxing, oddly enough for such a manic movie, the way a tabletop fountain is relaxing. Wade is hapless at times and pushy when he’s not.

The ridiculous appeal of Wade’s hair extends to all the other water people as well. Later in the film, Ember visits Wade’s high-rise apartment, guarded by a doorman whose walrus mustache looks like a crashing waterfall that cascades into perpetual foam at the bottom. She also meets Wade’s family, all of whom have their own similarly surging, plunging hair, with different textures depending on how actively the water moves and how much froth and spume it contains.

The family’s conversation is more than a little silly, packed with water puns and a “Let’s make each other cry!” game that’s downright weird, even though it comes to a touching end. Does crying help people lose weight? Why are they so into it? But the thoughtfulness and attention that went into the character design is compelling, no matter what they’re saying or doing.

There’s plenty of large-scale spectacle to stare at in Elemental As well. Sohn takes time away from the story’s forward momentum to let viewers just sit back and revel in all the wonder of this world, in scenes like Ember’s fireworks-backed bike ride early in the film, or her melancholy walk under the curtains of reflective water sheeting off the train tracks near her home. The heart of her movie is her trip with Wade underwater to find a rare plant. It’s as colorful as the story about her family or her frustrations. While the film lurches too much in different directions for it to be as cohesive and impactful as the best Pixar films, the story is still incredibly engaging. Inside Out The following are some examples of how to use The Incredibles, its eventual emotional payoffs do pack a punch.

It’s not for you, but it is for me. Elemental’s full emotional appeal doesn’t land until very late in the movie, once the threads fully come together. It takes a while, amid the bureaucratic plot, the backstory, and the worldbuilding, to make it clear that this movie’s most important questions are richer than “Can fire and water kiss?” or “Will Ember’s father ever say he’s proud of her?” Eventually, the reasons behind Ember’s volatile temper become clear, and the whole movie comes into focus more clearly. But until Elemental finally reveals its true scope, it’s worth watching for its big, splashy moments — and more significantly, its tiny, splashy hairdos.

ElementalDisney Plus has it now.