Elemental

Presented with less fanfare than any Pixar movie I can remember, Elemental answers the question of what a Disney version of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner would look like. Similar in many ways to Zootopia, Elemental offers an unusual city of characters, this time elemental beings of fire, water, cloud (air), and tree (earth), attempting to live together in peace with an undercurrent of racism and bigotry bubbling just below the surface.

Our two main characters are the fiery Ember (Leah Lewis), finally old enough to take over her father's (Ronnie Del Carmen) store if she can just learn to control her temper, and the water character Wade (Mamoudou Athie) who are thrown together by circumstance and slowly become friends and more while working together against accepted norms to save the shop and fall in love. While exploring opposing, and then blending, cultures, Elemental offers a nice message about the universal truth that love can often come from where you least expect it.

Initially struggling out of the gate at the box office, Elemental stuck around eventually earning more than $400 million worldwide. With its simple, but effective, story the film puts the burden of carrying the film on its characters, and Lewis and Del Carmen are more than up to the challenge. It may not be as fleshed out as some of Pixar's previous films, but it's emotional core is solid while offering a tale of struggle and acceptance that the world could use more of these days.

Watch the trailer

• Title: Elemental
• IMDb: link