Disney+ Summary:
In a city where fire, water, land and air residents live together, a fiery young woman and a go-with-the-flow guy are about to discover something elemental: how much they actually have in common.
FYA Summary:
In Element City, a metropolis founded by Water people and expanded by Earth, Air and Fire, immigrants Bernie and Cinder Lumen are training their daughter Ember to take over their family grocery store. Ember longs to make her parents proud, but service isn’t her strong point: she literally bursts into flame when customers annoy her. When one of her outbursts causes a leak in the store’s pipes, Ember meets city inspector Wade Ripple, a Water man who surprises her with his compassion and willingness to help. As Ember and Wade work together to protect the store from being flooded and/or shut down, they learn to see the beauty in each other’s differences. But can they ever be more than friends if each could extinguish the other with a touch?
Familiar Voices:
Leah Lewis as Ember Lumen and Mamadou Athé as Wade Ripple
Lewis has previously appeared in the Netflix rom-com The Half of It, Athé in sci-fi thrillers The Circle and Jurassic Park: Dominion. They both bring a subtlety and depth to what could have been caricatures of angry Fire and sentimental Water. Since Ember and Wade can’t touch (or can they?), the tone of their voices says a lot about their relationship. The way those two laugh together and hush in awe of each other made me melt into a puddle. (Not literally, of course. This isn’t Element City.)
Couch-Sharing Capability: Elements Can Mix
This is an ageless story for anyone who’s ever lived in a community of different kinds of people – so, everybody. Kids will enjoy the wildly creative visuals – Wade getting sucked through pipes, Ember powering a hot-air balloon with the top of her head – while adults can appreciate the applicability to real-life immigrant stories and interracial romance.
Recommended Beverage: Something Steamy
Sometimes seeing people almost touch, when they clearly want to but don’t know whether they should, can be almost as steamy as seeing them actually do it. So if you live in a cold climate (like me), snuggle down in front of the screen with a hot cup of tea.
Use of Your Streaming Subscription: Fire Blessing
The Fire people’s highest sign of respect is a bow that begins with cupped hands and ends by touching the ground. I would absolutely give that bow to the filmmakers, not least because of the heart-tugging Lumen family history associated with this tradition. Also, this may be the first time I’ve ever seen a man who cries openly portrayed in a positive light, with a woman who likes him for it – just as he likes her for her fiery stubbornness. Dear Pixar writers, thank you for Wade and Ember.
