To be fair, we don’t know much about Elemental, the upcoming feature film from world-beating CGI animation house Pixar. We’ve only got a teaser trailer and few scant plot and casting details to go by. But one thing we do know is that Elemental is hitting cinemas on June 15.
It seems that Elemental is a love story ala Romeo and Juliet more than anything else. It sets its scene in Element City, a fantastical place populated by various, well, elements—anthropomorphic manifestations of various essential substances. Our star-cross’d lovers are fire girl Ember Lumen (Leah Lewis), a “tough, quick-witted and fiery young woman”, and water boy Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie), a “fun, sappy, go-with-the-flow guy”. As you can see from the teaser, they have a little public transport-based meet-cute, and things proceed from there.
Pixar veteran Peter Sohn (The Good Dinosaur) is directing from a screenplay by Brenda Hsueh (How I Met Your Mother), and apparently the film is inspired by his experiences growing up as the child of Korean immigrants in New York City. “My parents emigrated from Korea in the early 1970s and built a bustling grocery store in the Bronx,” he explained. “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 neighbourhoods. That’s what led me to Elemental.”
Element City looks like another in a long line of brilliantly conceived Pixar settings, such as Finding Nemo’s gloriously realised Great Barrier Reef and Monsters, Inc.’s Monster City. But we’re also really feeling notes of Inside Out’s exploration of the human psyche. More plot details will emerge when the full trailer drops down the track, but we will say this: for a family film, Elemental looks a little steamy (sorry).
