“Why does anyone get to tell you what you can do in your life?”
95: Disney Movie Review #5…. Elemental!
I have wanted to write about this movie for FOREVER, but was having a hard time picking one of its many themes. Though Elemental is a romantic love story, it’s also a family love story. And I think I am able to write about it now because of the real-life parallels I can make.
So, without further ado—
A Gabby Summary
Right away, we get an introduction to the world of the elements. We see fire people coming to Element City for the first time, where the elements water, air, and earth have already been fully welcomed and included. It is clear as soon as a fire couple immigrates to Element City that they are seen as outsiders and are usually unwelcome in spaces that all other elements can fully enjoy.
The fire couple (Bernie and Cinder) finds many places up for rent, but are rejected from all of them based on the fact that they are fire. They set up shop, quite literally, in a seemingly abandoned part of town and their humble family shop “The Fire Place” becomes the center of their lively, cultural hub for the Firish people: Fire Town.
Soon after the couple settles in, they welcome their daughter Ember into the world. They were a family full of joy and love, but also a constant emphasis on how important the shop was and how they planned to pass it down to Ember.
“Someday, it will all be yours.”
As Ember grew, what was a source of much excitement in her childhood became a source of anger and pressure as she had a difficult time connecting with customers. This would manifest in her most literally blowing her top in an explosion of purple flames. (Customer service work, amiright?)
There are plenty of other fun quirks to the world that you see in passing as the plot unfolds. Ember’s mother has a matchmaking service (get it? MATCHmaking?), Ember’s grandmother’s last dying words were for her to “marry fire,” and Ember often plays along with longtime customers about getting off their “lazy ash” and doing some work.
One day, Ember’s father Bernie finally decides to allow Ember to run the shop for their Red Dot Sale. She prays to the Blue Flame, a fire her parents brought from their homeland, to help things go her way, but is very quickly overwhelmed by the demand of the customers. She excuses herself to the basement, where she goes “full purple.” This explosion shakes the pipes of the old building, allowing for water to flood the basement.
Along with the water in the pipes came a friendly and emotional water man named Wade, who happens to be a city inspector. Upon observing the old building— which he finds out was built by her father without any permits— he tearfully writes 30 citations that will likely shut down the entire shop.
Desperate to save the shop, Ember chases Wade into the city, but is unable to stop him before he sends the tickets in. After her fury simmers to despair, she begins to share how much the shop and her dad’s approval means to her. Wade completely understands where she is coming from, wondering why she didn’t lead with the vulnerable truth in the first place (such a ME thing to ask). As it has already been exemplified, Ember is not good at sharing her emotions. Even when Wade tries to tell her story in support of her at the processing department, she explodes once again, inspiring the now-singed earth man to send the tickets straight to his boss.
“Water, always trying to water us down”
“He was a water person, dad.”
Upon arriving home, Ember is resolved to keep fighting the tickets and has decided to keep the shop’s possibly doomed fate a secret from her family. (Feeling responsible for the feelings of her family… not relatable at allllll…) It is now that her parents share about what it was like to leave Fire Land. They didn’t want to leave, but their home had been destroyed. They knew they could make a better life in Element City, so they left all they ever knew and Ember’s father never saw his family again.
Ember is filled with even more motivation to save all her family has built, so she tags along with Wade to a sporting event where his wind boss Gale is cheering from her private box. With no other fire people visible in the stadium, Ember tries not to be a disturbance, even as she accidentally starts boiling water people she walks by. While Wade inspires the entire crowd to cheer on a player who’s down on his game because his mom is sick (THEY DO THE WAVE), Ember picks a fight with Gale instead of being vulnerable. After the game ends, Ember and Gale find a middle ground and Gale promises she will forgive all the citations if they find the source of the leak that sent Wade into the pipe in the first place.
To get a bird’s eye view of where the source of the leak might be, Ember creates an amazing makeshift hot air balloon where her and Wade finally have some real conversation. She finds out how lost he’s been since his dad passed and she shares about the Vivisteria flower she didn’t get to visit as a child. Her and her father went to see it but were turned away simply because they were fire people. The building flooded and she never got to see one. She was angry, but Wade could see through that to the hurt and fear she must have felt back then. Ember finds herself envious of his ability to connect with people, which she feels her temper gets in the way of.
“Sometimes, when I lose my temper,
it’s just me telling me something I’m not ready to hear.”
Together, they find the source of the leak and use sandbags to block it, which will hold until it’s able to be properly fixed. It’s in this moment of victory and connection that Wade shoots his shot and asks Ember on a date. Her mother can smell love on her when she gets home and is excited for Ember to finally have a potential match, though she doesn’t yet know he is water.
He cries happy tears that she showed up and they have a wonderful time exploring the city. It doesn’t seem like Ember is necessarily comfortable in the city, but Wade protects and guides her, even allowing himself to boil a little to block her from others in the elevator.
The chemistry of their elements are different, but the chemistry they feel together is palpable and— even though they are too nervous to touch in fear of hurting each other— they truly form a connection. Even though I see a lot of myself in both Ember and Wade, I see a lot of Zach in Wade. It makes their interactions all the sweeter to me.
As she makes her way home from the date, she stares lovingly at the water bridge she used to glare at, her own “racial” stereotypes changing as she gets to know Wade. But the next day, Wade alerts Ember that they do not have a crew to help them repair the leak permanently and they will need to figure out a way to fix it themselves. To explain his appearance at the shop, Wade pretends to be a food inspector. Ember’s father pushes him to eat spicier and spicier food, which Wade doesn’t particularly enjoy… until he waters it down a little bit. This mega-triggers Ember’s father and he is banned from their shop so that they will “not be watered down!”
Later, Wade approaches Ember in her desperate attempt to fill more sand bags on the beach. He has regrets about his communication with his dad before he passed so he is encouraging Ember to be honest now. However, being honest with her father feels impossible. Her fire dims and she allows herself to be vulnerable with Wade about her insecurities and her heat makes tempered glass out of the sand.
“How do you repay a sacrifice that big? It all feels like a burden…
How can I say that? I’m a bad daughter…”
Wade is amazed as she easily creates a flower in an orb of tempered glass as she realizes how they can fix the leak. The pair rush to the leak and Wade watches in awe (“I’ve never been punched in the face with beauty before”) at Ember’s glass-making abilities. While waiting for Gale’s approval or disapproval of their patch job, Wade invites Ember over for dinner at his family’s house, which turns out to be almost completely covered in water like an indoor pool. (This reminds me of wondering why my childhood bff Lexi had never been to Texas Roadhouse, completely forgetting she was deathly allergic to peanuts…)
Wade introduces Ember (balancing on a fire-proof mat on a pool floaty) to his family, who are definitely quite quirky and unintentionally offensive (“You speak so well and clear!” even though she had been speaking their language her whole life). After she fixes a pitcher with her amazing glass-blowing abilities, the family plays the “crying game.” Ember, thinking it’s bragging that she’s “never cried” thinks she’ll win no problem.
When Wade confesses his deep feelings of love for Ember, she cries fearing they won’t ever be able to be together. Suddenly, the phone rings and Gale approves the tempered glass solution. The tickets are cancelled! Spirits are high until Wade’s mother says she called a friend during dinner about Ember’s glass-blowing abilities and she had an internship opportunity outside of the city.Even though it sounds like good news, Ember begins to argue with Wade. He is confused at why she became angry at his mom’s offer instead of communicating how much she wanted to take over the shop. After trying to push him away instead of revealing her true feelings, she confesses to Wade that she doesn’t actually want to run her dad’s shop. She feels trapped under the pressure of her father’s sacrifice and resents Wade for encouraging her to follow her dreams.
Just then, Ember’s mom appears, revealing that she had been following them. To prove there is no way water and fire could be together, she prompts Wade to light a fire for her to read the smoke, which he is surprisingly able to accomplish by shining Ember’s light through his water. Before their reading can be completed, they rush Wade out right before her dad walks in. He reveals that he will finally be retiring, surprising Ember with a sign he had made for her.
He explains that, when he left his homeland, he gave his father the “Bà ksô” aka “the big bow.” This is the highest form of respect and a way to give someone your blessing in their culture. But his father did not return the bow, thinking his som was turning his back on his family and would forget where he came from in the new land. Obviously, Ember’s father never forgot and was extremely proud of his heritage. He wanted Ember to know that this gift was him giving her his blessing each and every day she walked in the shop.
After her parents went to sleep, she stayed up turning on and off the sign, crying.
Ember went to Wade the next day to give him the tempered glass flower she had made on the beach. Knowing that this was Ember saying goodbye, he begged her to come with him one more time. They venture to the building that the Vivisteria flower had been showcased in, where Gale is waiting to help Ember finally see the special flower.
“Why does anyone get to tell you what you can do in your life?
The scene is powerful, as Wade made possible for Ember what she was told wasn’t. She finally saw the flower her childhood self always wanted to see: the flower that could thrive in any environment, something that would be unafraid of her fire. And, after narrowly drowning (lol) in the flooded show room, Ember and Wade risk touching hands, having been inspired by their experience. She isn’t extinguished and he isn’t vaporized. They steam, the connect, they dance, and they hug.
As he holds her, Wade shares how lucky he feels to have Ember, which is exactly what her father had communicated to her earlier in regards to the shop. Again, Ember feels overwhelmed and runs from Wade once again, prepared to do what her family needs her to do. However, Wade crashes her dad’s retirement party to profess his love to Ember, which she renounces.
In the chaos, Ember’s mom reveals that their love is true according to her reading, and Wade admits he was the inspector that was banned from their shop, but it is also revealed that Ember was the cause of the water leaks that day and that she had been lying to her father about seeing a water guy. Doubting his ability to trust his daughter, he decides not to retire.
When all seems lost, there is suddenly an explosion at the dam and the tempered glass is destroyed by a huge flood, heading straight for Fire Town. Ember races to warn her community and is able to get inside the shop to attempt to save her family’s Blue Flame. Wade meets her there to try to help fend off the water, but more water starts flooding in and they get trapped in a dry, hot room. Wade saves the Blue Flame, but— due to the heat in the room— he begins evaporating. Ember is desperate to save him, but she cannot, so she holds him and confesses she loves him, as he disappears.
When the food passes, Ember’s family is frantically trying to find Ember. When she is revealed, she is clutching the Blue Flame lantern as she announces that Wade is gone and he saved her. In honor of Wade, she tells her dad the truth about how she feels as she presents him with the Blue Flame. Her father quickly puts the blue flame aside to reassure Ember that the shop was never the dream.
“You were the dream. You were always the dream.”
As they embrace, she sobs and confesses that she loved Wade. And to everyone’s surprise, they can hear Wade’s soft sobs in the distance. She starts to say all the things she knows could make Wade cry, as do her parents, and— slowly but surely— his tears form in a bucket and he is able to regain his form. And, then, they share their first kiss. And it is both literally and figuratively steamy.
In the end, we see a Fire Town that is more diverse than ever. Ember’s father got to retire and some of their loyal customers took over the shop. Wade is welcomed into the family and Ember took the internship with full support of her family.
Before boarding the boat to start their new life together, Ember turns and gives her father “the big bow.” And I cry into my shirt as her father, as old as he is, gets down on his knees and returns the bow. They both leave in silence, knowing without a doubt that their connection is stronger than ever before.
We repeat the patterns we make no attempt to stop.
This movie has a butt-load of themes, including discrimination, immigration, and the struggle of minorities. These themes are not lost on me, especially now when vulnerable minority groups are being targeted by the current presidency. The feeling of being unwelcome or viewed as an outsider is something the entirety of fire people understand. And it’s a feeling I know well, as someone who is mixed, a woman, and of the queer community.
Elemental also has themes of love joining people that would otherwise not cross paths. Even though Ember and Wade are of different elements, they accept and celebrate each other as they are. It always makes me tear up when Wade comments on how beautiful it is when Ember’s light shimmers when she’s crying. He loves her vulnerable self, who she really is. And at no point does he ever try to dim her light.
But the theme I was inspired to focus on this week was Ember’s relationship with her parents. Unlike other Disney movies we’ve seen where the parental figure has a sort of tyrannical way of running the family (I’m looking at you, Abuela Alma…), Elemental’s parent duo is very humble and kind to each other. Her mother pokes at her not having a boyfriend, but her father is not explicitly forcing her to run the shop. Ember herself has only expressed interest in taking over for her father, so it appears to me like he was only trying his best to support her dreams.
However, more communication would have solved this issue. I have to think that her father was so excited she wanted to run the shop, he didn’t want to introduce her to other options. I also think that glass-blowing is maybe so ingrained in their culture that neither Bernie nor Ember knew it was even a talent she had. But due to the family’s focus on the shop, Ember felt that there were no other options that her father would approve of. And Ember’s fear seemed to be fully connected to how she felt the need to repay her parents for their sacrifice, not because her dad was being forceful or pressuring her. She wanted them to know how grateful she was.
In many ways, Bernie— Ember’s father— is the cycle breaker. He did not do what his father did to him, refusing his blessing and putting his belief in the Blue Flame above his family. Once he heard Ember’s feelings, he immediately put the Blue Flame aside and told her exactly what she needed to hear and what he would have wanted to hear from his father that day he left Fire Land.
When Ember does “the big bow” to her father at the end of the movie, it is insanely powerful. Her parents are taken aback and highly emotional. Even though they say nothing as they bow to each other, their mutual respect and love has an undoubtably strong presence. Their relationship is not built on the foundation of meeting expectations or being grateful enough, it is built on unending love and familial support. Before, Ember relied too heavily on the idea of running the shop as a way to connect with her dad and to make him feel respected. But his love for her is not conditional.
I also love the moments that we see Ember resisting what is meant for her. At the beginning of the movie, we see her pray that “things will go her way” and I believe they do. Even though her she is angry at herself for not being able to force her emotions to go certain ways (as none of us really are), everything falls into place once she accepts that reality. When she is honest with herself and stops resisting what her anger has been telling her all along, she finds herself fully satisfied and happy.
The mess of her— and my life— was only caused by a lack of connection to self. It was hard for her to connect to others because of that disconnection to herself. I completely understand the fear of letting people down if you follow your own path, but resisting the path makes for even more turbulence on the journey. It makes sense that not everyone will all want the same things in life. And that’s good! Those differences should be celebrated and explored!
It reminds me of a scene in Turning Red where Mei Mei’s confession of her real feelings— unlike Ember’s experience with her father— is so difficult for her mother to receive that her mom’s inner beast breaks through. When I see this, I see the way Ember feared her father would react to her feelings. Mei’s “disobedience” deeply triggered her mother and awakened the unresolved mommy issues she had locked away. Unlike Bernie, Mei’s mom was not the cycle breaker. Since Bernie had obviously reflected deeply on his father’s disapproval and rejection, he was able to give his daughter grace, acceptance, and support. He didn’t view her independence and her dreams as a kind of disobedience to him or the Blue Flame. He was proud of her.
“The least you can do is…
every single thing they ask.
But be careful, honoring your parents sounds great,
but if you take it too far,
you might forget to honor yourself.”
At the end of Turning Red, her mother does eventually accept that Mei is changing and is proud of her daughter, but it takes a lot to get there. In Elemental, the entire shop gets destroyed and Wade evaporates before Ember starts to be true to herself. Sometimes it takes a lot to inspire people to change. And I’m telling myself this having experienced family therapy with my own parents and coming out on the other side better than ever. I have renewed hope and closeness in my relationship with my parents, just like Ember does. But, ever the optimist, I am trying my darndest to have that same kind of revival with my in-laws.
I am a cycle-breaker. I am a loudspeaker. I am an outsider. And all these things make it hard for me to mend the brokenness in my relationship with my in-laws, but— as my therapists have pointed out— all those things also make me uniquely equipped to enact positive change in the family dynamic. I am hoping and have even started praying that things will start moving at a pace I can see and appreciate, but I am trying to remind myself that these things take time.
It takes time to be honest with ourselves about how we feel.
It takes time to gather the courage to share our vulnerabilities with others.
It takes time to understand and process, some people more than others.
It takes time to become open to change at all.
And it takes time to realize what’s really important, especially when it comes to prioritizing relationships over what we individually may believe is right.
I’m praying for what I’ve been told may be impossible. But a part of me just can’t accept it until I put my all into trying to make it better.
Weekly Subscriptions & Cancellations💁🏽♀️
the ideas and soundtracks I want running in my head, or not.
🙋🏽♀️SUBSCRIBED to:
not having a full time job job (a paid one, that is. As being a mom is definitely my full time job and my most important one).
The LIBRARY! What a wonderful place. Oak just reached 200 books in the “1,000 books before Kindergarten” challenge and got lots of fun prizes— all for free! :)
going to church and going to farmer’s markets, eating hots dogs at Costco, trying out random crafts, watching the entirety of Gabby’s Dollhouse… all things I would have not experienced or would have had a different perspective while experiencing, if it weren’t for my Oaky
feeling constant kicks from my future daughter (whom we have nicknamed Pokey, because she likes poking me hehe)
🤦🏽♀️UNSUBSCRIBED from:
RFK Jr. and his war against autism
The emails CCV keeps sending me about renewing my background check (working on getting them to stop as my unconscious mind loves to add them in as nightmare plot lines)
the pain that comes with change, the pain that comes from a u-turn of sorts in my life. Even though I know I am moving the right way, it has been extremely extremely emotionally taxing. (More on this in later posts)
Trump stickers. If I get a Pride sticker, will my car be targeted? I don’t see any rainbows anywhere and I want the queer people area I live in to know there ARE safe people out there.
🌻Show & Tell🌻
I drew and painted these for Oak’s birthday party! Yes, it IS Bluey AND Astrobot-themed. Of course he’s indecisive, he is our son after all.
🩵💙
Time for some TLCCC💕
Treating myself to: an actual costume to don at Phoenix Fan Fusion!
Listening to: bonus episodes of The Rise & Fall of Mars Hill. Was surprised to hear the artist who wrote Sticks & Stones ended up feeling regretful about his song being used in the podcast. Honestly, I heard Sticks & Stones for the first time through this podcast and I connected to it as a song that spoke to my own spiritual trauma story. Thankful it was the theme song!
Crafting: Decor for Oakley’s birthday 🎉 💙🩵
Craving: Capri Sun’s limited-edition MOON PUNCH
Caring SO much about: keeping people in my life that didn’t leave me when it was hard. If I could do our wedding over again, my bridesmaid list would look different. Which makes sense I guess with the passage of time, but I am also saddened by it. As much hope as I find in change, I am still deeply nostalgic and have a hard time with anyone leaving my life.