Have you watched Elemental: the movie?

I watched it few days back and thoroughly enjoyed it. Below are my reflections and thoughts about this movie. **spoiler alert**

In brief, Elemental is an animation movie by Disney and Pixar productions.

The story follows the protagonist Ember, a fire element, and her life as an only child to a pair of loving parents. Her dad Bernie, also a fire element, runs a convenience store (called “Fireplace”). Ember is meant to inherit this store when her dad decides that she is ready. While Ember desires to take over the business for the sake of Bernie's retirement, Bernie is uncertain about Ember’s readiness in light of her fiery temper. Ember is observed to have difficulty regulating her emotions when dealing with customers.

A sale event is organised in the Fireplace — this is an opportunity for Ember to showcase her ability to manage customers and gain approval from dad. However, due to her emotional outburst, Ember accidentally causes the (already faulty) water pipes to leak. Wade, water element inspector, issues tickets and threatens to close the store. Ember, in her desperation to save her dad’s store, ventures out of Fire town for the first time in her bid to convince Wade to help her. She shares that Fireplace was fruit of Bernie’s labour and dreams, and out of sympathy for her, he decided to help her. The duo goes on a journey to mend the leakage and save the store from permanent closure. Ember uses her glassmaking ability to not only seal the leak in dam but also, to mend a broken glass pitcher at Wade’s home. This results in Brook (Wade’s mum) recommending Ember to further her passion in glassmaking skill. This poses an important dilemma to Ember about her career aspirations. She soon realises that she does not have the passion to run her dad’s convenience store — instead, she is more passionate on the glassmaking internship as suggested by Brook.

Ember and Wade are absolutely different — in terms of temperament, socioeconomic status, personalities etc. On one hand, Ember is like a practical element that people needs, for cooking and keeping warm. She is short-fused and quick to temper! Wade, on the other hand, is a water element — he is transparent in that, he tends to wear his emotions on his sleeve….he goes with the flow and is highly spontaneous. Fire, with its intensity, builds tension while water is calming. The combination of both elements is a perfect representation of yin-yang balance. The movie seems to remind all of us that when one element becomes too excessive or dominant, it can lead to destruction. Hence, be it for work or life, it is important to have some balance.

Fire can refer to one’s temper, or passion in life. In the case of Ember: through her “short-fuse” when she deals with customers at Bernie’s Fireplace, it seems to suggest that deep down inside, she may be lacking passion in this business. By contrast, when she engages in glassmaking, Ember seems able to control her fire so that she can make beautiful glass ornament creations. This shows that how one chooses to use his/her passion or Fire can either make (create) or break (destroy). This shows the importance of realising one's passion and then using it for meaningful purposes/causes.

Growing up in a Fire family, Ember had been taught to fear water elementals; she was taught that fluids can extinguish her very existence. However, when Ember and Wade met, they gradually became attracted to each other (possibly due to how they are so different from each other) and an unlikely romance between both blossomed. Towards the end of story, after much hesitation and fear, they finally embraced. Instead of causing harm to each other as expected, a beautiful phenomenon occurred. This seems to suggest that it is important to keep an open mind to accepting someone different as sometimes, opposites can indeed complement each other.

Throughout the story, we witness Ember working hard to keep Bernie’s business alive— almost like this is her sole purpose in life. Through this pursuit, she almost loses her own dream. This is such a wake-up call for us to not lose ourselves and our dreams/aspirations in pursuit of others’ dreams (which we may mistake as ours).

I adore many conversations featured in the movie — but one stood out to me.

It was the one whereby Ember asked her dad, “Isn’t this your dream?” (Referring to Firestore), to which, Bernie replied “No, you are my dream”.

This indeed tugged at my heart’s strings to see the love and adoration that Bernie had for her daughter, Ember. It was like unconditional love in which he already saw her as a dream come true, not so much like someone who has to seek his approval in order to take over his business. It also means that his business /legacy is secondary; her daughter was the priority. Relatedly, I would like to think that most parents can get where he is coming from. I for one had experienced sense of gratitude wash over me as I sneak into my loved ones' bedrooms to ensure they are tightly snugged under their blankets at night. In those quiet moments, I will sometimes marvel at their sleeping faces and feel like the luckiest person to be part of their lives..

Perhaps this is what Bernie was referring to as he said those heartfelt words.

It also makes me wonder if that was what my parents feel as well despite not expressing it (context: Asian family!). This reminds us to prioritise our loved ones and to say our heartfelt words to them whenever we have the chance to do so.

This movie brings about so many reminders to me, hopefully they are applicable to you too. Do take some time to reflect about your movie experience after you watch it and feel free to share your insights with me!

May your fire continue burning bright,

Jeanice

This is a movie review of the animation movie Elemental.