Passes the Bechdel test

Elemental

Name: Elemental
Released: 2023

2023. Directed by Peter Sohn, written by John Hoberg and Kat Likkel and Brenda Hsueh.

The Bechdel test

Bechdel score

3 / 3

Passes

Yes 1. At least two women
8 women characters. 12 of them speak.
Yes 2. Who talk to each other
In 14 scenes out of 123.
Yes 3. About something besides a man
In those scenes, our script parser found no man named. See the scene.

Second opinion

Agree bechdeltest.com readers give it 3 out of 3, though someone marked that rating as dubious.

The film

The film journeys alongside an unlikely pair, Ember and Wade, in a city where fire-, water-, land- and air-residents live together. The fiery young woman and the go-with-the-flow guy are about to discover something elemental: how much they actually have in common.

Released: 16 Jun 2023
Genres: Animation, Adventure, Comedy
Rated: PG
IMDb: 7 / 10
Metascore: 58 / 100
Awards: Nominated for 1 Oscar. 4 wins & 69 nominations total
Elsewhere: View on IMDb

Starring, by lines spoken

Women
Men
Not in the cast list
Bigger name, more lines

Ember 312 lines, woman
Wade 247 lines, man
Bernie 125 lines, man
Cinder 56 lines, woman
Gale 28 lines, woman
Brook 18 lines, woman
Clod 14 lines, man
Teenage Ember 10 lines, woman
Harold 9 lines, man
Alan 6 lines, man

Full cast, 18 people

Leah Lewis as Ember (voice)
Mamoudou Athie as Wade (voice)
Ronnie del Carmen as Bernie (voice)
Shila Ommi as Cinder (voice)
Wendi McLendon-Covey as Gale (voice)
Catherine O'Hara as Brook (voice)
Mason Wertheimer as Clod (voice)
Ronobir Lahiri as Harold (voice)
Wilma Bonet as Flarrietta (voice)
Joe Pera as Fern (voice)
Matthew Yang King as Alan / Lutz / Earth Pruner (voice)
Clara Lin Ding as Little Kid Ember (voice)
Reagan To as Big Kid Ember (voice)
Jeff Lapensee as Sparkler Customer (voice)
Ben Morris as Wood Immigration Official (voice)
Jonathan Adams as Flarry (voice)
Alex Kapp Horner as Customer / Delivery Person / Earth Landlord (voice)
P.L. Brown as Doorman (voice)

Who talks, scene by scene

Lines of dialogue in every 3 scenes, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 5% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.

Women

Men

Scene 1 Scene 123

Hover, tap or tab to a bar to see those scenes: where they happen and who's talking.

Show the numbers

Scenes	Women's lines	Men's lines
1 to 3	0	0
4 to 6	1	7
7 to 9	1	7
10 to 12	7	13
13 to 15	2	1
16 to 18	37	24
19 to 21	13	1
22 to 24	14	8
25 to 27	9	6
28 to 30	27	17
31 to 33	6	1
34 to 36	10	7
37 to 39	9	17
40 to 42	21	7
43 to 45	6	6
46 to 48	43	28
49 to 51	11	18
52 to 54	22	22
55 to 57	5	6
58 to 60	0	0
61 to 63	1	0
64 to 66	1	5
67 to 69	7	4
70 to 72	14	31
73 to 75	10	10
76 to 78	4	5
79 to 81	3	5
82 to 84	22	20
85 to 87	14	23
88 to 90	25	11
91 to 93	11	15
94 to 96	3	8
97 to 99	11	9
100 to 102	20	42
103 to 105	4	1
106 to 108	7	6
109 to 111	9	6
112 to 114	10	5
115 to 117	5	5
118 to 120	18	12
121 to 123	4	7

The evidence

Straight from the script
Counted from the script and the credits

Tap an exhibit to open it.

Exhibit A: the passing scenes

The scene our parser counted as passing, word for word.

CINDER: Ha! Knew it! TEENAGE EMBER: Àshfá, customer.

EMBER: --MAKE CONNECTION!!!! CUSTOMER: Ah! EMBER: Sorry. Sorry about that. Sorry, sorry. FLARRIETTA: She almost went full purple! I've never seen anyone go full purple!

CUSTOMER: Okay. EMBER: Sorry Àshfá. I don't know why that one got away from me.

EMBER: And speaking of "ready," we are MORE than ready for you to actually BUY something, if you'd ever get up off your lazy ash. FLARRIETTA: Burn!

CINDER: It's true love! CINDER: Which is more than I ever smelled on this one. EMBER: Oh goodie. This ol' chestnut. CINDER: Yup, nothing. Just a loveless sad future of sadness.

Exhibit B: every 100 lines

Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 51 are women's.

447 lines from women, 426 from men.

Women
Men

Exhibit C: who's in it

8 women and 10 men in the cast. 12 women and 11 men from it get lines.

Characters

With lines

Women
Men

Exhibit D: who gets heard

The first woman speaks at line 9 of 919. The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 14 lines.

Every line of dialogue, first to last

First line by a woman
Longest stretch with no woman speaking

Words spoken

Women speak 50% of the words (3,271), men 50% (3,320). Women have 51% of the lines, so their lines run shorter than men's.

Exhibit E: the test the other way

Two named men talk to each other about something besides a woman. It passes the reverse test.

Conversations between two named characters

Two women

Two men

Exhibit F: behind the camera

6 of the 16 people in these jobs are women. Across the whole crew, 40% of the people whose gender is listed are women.

Directed by: Peter Sohn (man)
Written by: John Hoberg (man), Kat Likkel (woman), Brenda Hsueh (woman)
Story by: John Hoberg (man), Kat Likkel (woman), Brenda Hsueh (woman), Peter Sohn (man)
Produced by: Denise Ream (woman)
Shot by: David Juan Bianchi (man), Jean-Claude Kalache (man)
Edited by: Stephen Schaffer (man)
Music by: Thomas Newman (man)
Production design by: Don Shank (man)
Cast by: Natalie Lyon (woman), Kevin Reher (man)