With Elementary Pixar is on fire again (review)

Losing creative and graphic speed, the studio is regaining momentum with this film with a wonderful pitch and production. Not a masterpiece, no, but a great idea.

Elementarythe latest animated film from Pixar studios, experienced a strange success at the box office, starting very timidly before seeing its recipes and starters continue for a good part of the summer. At the time of its broadcast on Canal + this evening, it is therefore considered a success, both publicly and critically.

So much the better, because its creator, Peter Sohn, did not lack audacity with this story of beings of water and ice who learn to understand and help each other. Here is our opinion on the film, initially published in June 2023 for its cinema release.

Peter Sohn: “At Pixar, we want to create characters who have a heart!”

For several years now, the Pixar movies have become group psychotherapies treating mourning (Coco), death and resurrection (Drunk) or adolescent impulses in their most monstrous ways (Red alert). Next to, Elementary suddenly seems very simple: it’s a love story. We sit down to watch the film and after a prologue, the rom com starts immediately. It’s the Boy meets girl classic, with this little thing that has spiced up any love story for centuries: cultural (and social) differences will complicate the destiny of the two heroes.

For the first time, the lamp studio is embarking on a classic love story. We’re still at Pixar, and nothing can be as simple as expected. The real twist here lies in the universe in which this story takes place. In Element City, fire, air, earth and water coexist – the four elements imagined by good old Empedocles to explain the way the world works. In this decal city of Manhattan, a girl (Flam, from the fire people) lively, warm and whole meets a boy (Flack, a water man) who is shy, whiny and very sensitive. They cross paths by chance since Flam accidentally floods the family shop and she has to settle the matter with this water services inspector, who is very stickler for the rules, but ready to turn a blind eye so that the water business Flam family does not flow.

From these clear premises, the story will multiply (a little too much) the subplots. Elementary will one after the other unfold a story about immigration, a fable about living together, a thriller around a gigantic escape that threatens the city, a story of succession with incidentally one of the studio’s first truly social subtexts …but the charm of the film lies elsewhere.

In the description of the crazy universe of Element City. You will have to watch the film again at home so as not to miss any gags. A flame mom pushing her flame baby into a barbecue; loving trees that each pick their apples tenderly; in an aquarium tower in an upscale neighborhood, you can see aquarium lounges through the windows; the dunks of aerial basketball matches disappear into the clouds… It’s very cute, gently poetic and above all incredibly designated. Because Pixar is stepping out of its aesthetic comfort zone a little: the film succeeds in amalgamating different graphic styles, offering a lush and quite breathtaking variety. 2D, 3D, watery graphics, stylized drawing and very fifties… the triumph of the film is aesthetic (the design of the people of fire is the most beautiful thing the studio has done in recent times).

The other quality ofElementary it is his pure poetic idea. And which incidentally recalls the great Pixarian strength: “simplexity”. Make a complex idea simple. Basically, the film could be summed up in one sentence. How to chemically represent love at first sight? director Peter Sohn seems to have asked himself. What could the physical transcription of what it feels like to fall in love look like? Answer: by mixing water and fire. It’s as simple and as complex as that.

In a universe that resembles an incarnation of Mendeleiev’s painting, the entire film therefore progresses towards this moment where Flam and Flack will touch. It’s these little moments that create the true beauty of the film. The moment when Flam and Flack brush against each other and create water vapor, their aquatic ballet as magical as it is impossible (Flam locked in an air bubble which inevitably shrinks). The power of this idea, its realization, is like an echo of Pixar’s great discoveries (what if the games came to life? what if the cars spoke? what if our emotions were embodied?).

So, yes, there are hesitations. Certainly, rom coms do not always achieve the rhythm and purity of the classics from which they are inspired (Cukor’s Indiscretions or Capra’s New York Miami). But for a few moments, a few scenes, we say to ourselves that Pixar has returned to its great level. And that’s priceless.