Review of Elemental, directed by Peter Sohn

If you’re new here and found this blog through the mysterious powers of the Internet, welcome! My name is Ashley, and I’m a dedicated reader and movie watcher who thought to turn this website into a little digital archive of sorts.

I was watching and reading so much that I wanted to keep track of it all, so I began blogging as a way to keep these books as memories somewhat forever.

That said, I recently fell into a period of unemployment, and this blog was a solace for me. Not only was it a way to make a little bit of money when there was nothing else coming my way really, but I found, after getting my finances in order, that I enjoyed sitting down to write blog posts when I had nothing else to do in my day.

Because I suddenly have more free time in-between job hunting and working on my blog, I’ve been catching up on all the books, movies, and television I’ve been meaning to get to throughout the years. And trust me, my list is huge, so I probably will not that big of a dent by the time I get to a new job.

But one of the movies that’s been on my list is Elemental. I remember when it first came out, my sister saw it, and she raved about the movie. And me being me, I procrastinated on watching it for a while. It was late 2024 until I finally got around to seeing the film, and that was because it was at my local library’s DVD section and I decided to give it a chance.

My movie backlog is especially long because I worked professionally as a film critic, which meant that I was watching a lot of movies as they were released in the moment. If I could not get to them then, I would probably not got to them for a long time.

And because I finally saw Elemental, let’s get into the review! I don’t want to ramble too much in the introduction, as I know these can get quite long sometimes.

In an alternate world, a girl made of fire falls in love with a boy made of water.

This movie takes place in a world where people are made of the elements, and many of the elements live together in some harmony in Element City. Two fire elements, Cinder and Bernie, left behind the Fire Land in search of better opportunity, but discovered that prejudices still exist in Element City. They have a daughter, Ember, and then open a store in the fire section of the city called the Fireplace.

When Ember grows up, Bernie wants to leave the store to her, but her emotions are high and she incinerates everything around her when she has outbursts. One of these outbursts occurs the day one of their biggest sales, and she breaks a pipe when she reaches her boiling point.

Wade Ripple, a water element who is a city inspector, is sucked into the basement of the shop because of this and realizes that the plumbing in the house has violations, and he needs to report to this the city. As he runs away from Ember, she chases after him into the city, riding the subway, but is unable to stop him from filing the report.

The city wants to shut the Fireplace down, but Wade feels bad for Ember and her situation and brings her to a game to talk to his boss. Wade saves the day by saying that he was looking for a leak in the canals, and that Ember and he will be able to find it by the week’s end. His boss agrees, and if they’re able to do it, they can save the shop.

They start investigating immediately where the leak is, while her mother suspects that she’s beginning to see someone romantically. And she’s right, because the more time she spends with these two, the more they begin falling in love with each other. They find the hole and try to seal it with sandbags, but this fails, and Ember creates a system where she makes glass to seal the water in.

The two still hang out, and Wade takes Ember to meet his family. While she avoids the water in their house, she cries while playing their crying game when he admits he has genuine feelings for her. Her father’s shop is saved, but then she starts coming to terms with the fact she doesn’t want to be the next owner of the store.

Bernie makes the preparations to hand the store over, while Wade takes Ember to her dream to see flowers that survive in any environment, although it’s a little scary as she has to go underwater. The two also realize they can touch each other, but Ember breaks up with him when she realizes they can never be together.

Her father has a big celebration to pass the store over, but Wade shows up and ruins everything, making Ember even more mad at him. It doesn’t help he reveals she broke the pip, which angers her father to the point of refusing to give the store to her, but Cinder, who had learned of the relationship earlier, is disappointed to see this.

However, Ember’s seal on the dam breaks and the fire neighborhood is left underwater. Wade rushes to help Ember, who saves the family’s Blue Flame, and he evaporates as they are trapped in a room together. She tells her parents she didn’t want to run the store and loves Wade, but then she realizes he’s just become water molecules in the air.

With the Crying Game, she gets him to come back together and they kiss. The movie ends with Bernie giving the shop to a friend, and Ember and Wade leave the city so she can become a glassmaker.

Overall Thoughts

This is such a cute movie, although the plot itself is a little thin. I wasn’t a big fan of the cliche aspects of the movie, but I could see immense value in how this depicts other races/ethnicities and the mirror to the world we, as humans, live in right now.

I was also curious at how cultures were blended together. I definitely spotted a Korean bow at the end when Ember was bowing to her parents. There were little details in there that made me very interested in the world of the film and how it could go further.

I wish it pushed deeper into its themes, but it feels more like a kids’ movie because of how it doesn’t go further and get more complex. I think that’s why I wasn’t the biggest fan of it in the end, which is alright. Someone else out there loves this movie a lot, which is fine. Power to them.

I say go watch it if you haven’t already and are interested! It’s a fun little Friday night movie for a night in.

Follow me on Instagram and Goodreads for more.