No, Pixar Doesn't Intentionally Try To Make Adults Cry
When you go to a Pixar film, you'd better pack the tissues. This isn't news to fans who have been sniffling over them for years, myself included. In fact, grab them now as I remind you of some of the moments that got you right in the tear ducts. Think about Andy saying goodbye to his childhood toys, Woody and Buzz Lightyear, in "Toy Story 3," or when Hector and Miguel realize how they're connected in "Coco." What about the lonely little robot Wall-E sadly watching musicals about love or Bing Bong disappearing in "Inside Out." Then we have the pinnacle of eye-leaking emotion in the beginning of "Up" with the love story of Carl and Ellie. I could go on, but I don't want you to wake up with puffy peepers tomorrow.
The latest Pixar offering is "Elemental," the story of a world where people made of elements like air, water, earth, and fire live in Elemental City and have literal reasons for staying within their own groups (fire and water make steam, for example). Ember Lumen (Leah Lewis), a fire woman, falls in love with Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie), a water man, despite the issues keeping them apart. There are certainly teary moments in this film, following Pixar tradition.
/Film's own BJ Colangelo recently spoke to director Peter Sohn and producer Denise Ream about the new movie and asked them about Pixar's history with bringing tears to the eyes of audiences. As the pair explained, it's not something they intentionally set out to do — it's just something that inevitably happens when you're telling highly emotional and deeply personal stories like Pixar does.
'It comes naturally with the story'
BJ asked Denise Ream and Peter Sohn about, in her own words, the "running joke that Pixar movies are guaranteed to make you cry," which Sohn assured her isn't deliberate. "It comes naturally with the story," he replied, explaining:
"There was never a checklist for it, but all you ever do is you're trying to find a connection point really and at the same time, goof off and have funny ideas going on. You're in rooms like this literally, where you're sort of [meeting] and talking about ideas of the story, but then every so often there'll be some little nugget that we all connect to like, 'Wait, so what happened?' It's like, 'Yeah, my mom did X or Y' and then all of a sudden this authentic emotion comes up that you all resonate [with] and we're just chasing that."
"You're just trying to chase something that feels real from this point of view, but it's not like, 'Ta-da! [The] formula for tears: 60% wetness!'" he added. "It's always just a sincere search for something that feels real to each other."
There may not be a literal formula for tears, but Pixar's crying sorcery remains potent in its 27th feature film. Sohn may explain it by talking about emotional resonant moments we've all felt, but considering the volume of tears that I, a non-crier for the most part, have shed watching the studio's films, there might just be some sort of proper magic involved.
"Elemental" is now playing in theaters.