“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.”
– Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot
You and I stargazing
Intertwining souls
We were never strangers
You were right there all along
“Stargazing” – Myles Smith
Earth is ghetto, I want to leave
Can you beam me up
I’m out on the [beach]
“Earth Is Ghetlo” – Aliah Sheffield
Somewhere out there…
Finding a place to belong is one of the quintessential quests of human life. Elio is about an 11-year-old boy who doesn’t think he has a place in this world. Voiced with light and vulnerability by Yonas Kibreab, the newest Pixar hero, Elio Solís, is grieving the loss of his parents and struggling to connect with his Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña). Amid her own loss, Olga, a military orbital analyst, puts her astronaut dreams on hold to raise her nephew. But after hearing Carl Sagan narrate an exhibit about sending children’s voices to space, Elio’s love of the universe beyond our atmosphere is ignited, too.
“All I ever wanted was to find a place to fit in.”
Living on an army base, Elio channels his feelings of alienation and loneliness into an obsession with alien abduction. In one of the, now, legendary Pixar “the story before” montages, he spends hours on the beach with “Aliens, Abduct Me” written in the sand, and a ham radio sending signals to the stars. His desperate hope is that somewhere out there, there’s a place he belongs (because Earth ain’t it).
After nearly causing Aunt Olga to lose her job, the pair can’t get past their irreconcilable differences. Elio gets shipped off to a classic movie sleepaway camp where his past troublemaking comes looking for him. But when you wish upon a star…you get beamed up to the Communiverse, a fabulous intergalactic United Nations of alien species. That’s where he’s mistaken for Earth’s leader and gets a makeover that any superheroes would fight him for. What follows is a whimsical, three-act adventure that’s equal parts diplomatic hijinks, friendmance—with a toothy but fluffy alien silk-slug named Glordon (Remy Edgerly), and a big nod to the idea that all is right in the universe—eventually.
Visually, co-directors Adrian Molina, Madeline Sharafian, and Domee Shi (Turning Red, Bao) create a luminous feast of textures that feels warmly familiar but from a new angle. The Communiverse is just so pretty. As a master habitat of organic architecture, its design draws inspiration from deep-sea bioluminescence and an origami-like sacred geometry. I’m a fan of the use of light, and here it flows through various liquid, geode, or translucent structures—nodding to Pixar’s always excellent RenderMan system.
The textures are varied, tactile, and honestly magnificent, but so are the alien designs. They make it plausible that all Pixar stories take place in a single cinematic universe. The shape-shifting liquid computer OOOOO (Shirley Henderson) feels squishable, like the technological version of a slime from anime. While the future bestie, Glordon’s, design mixes the organic with the mechanical. His slug form is inspired by microscopic organisms, but his armor is pure mecha. The same with his father, the warlord Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett), who flexes with an arsenal of mecha weaponry that glows with heat and glints in its metallic casing. But my favorite character is the mind-reading Ambassador Questa (Jameela Jamil), who’s basically an ethereal dragon made out of jellyfish.
The team of writers dives into the possibilities of the three-act structure with Elio. The first act is grounded on Earth, where Elio dreams of being somewhere—and someone—else, yearning for connection in the stars while struggling with grief and loneliness. Then, in the second act, he’s sucked up and into the thrill of almost achieving his dream, but only if he lies. By the third act, this movie transforms into a classic alien adventure, blending the emotional weight of Earth with the wild spectacle of space, where everything Elio and Friends have learned will either save them or doom them. The animation team compliments the writing and went full Spielberg-meets-Lucas-meets-King with the visual easter eggs, and I wonder what new things I’ll discover after a rewatch.
Throughout, the film is filled with homages to sci-fi classics: a climactic cavalry scene from Galaxy Quest, music and other cues from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a sneaky little nod to the Death Star, and a The Thing-inspired sequence so phenomenally creepy in John Carpenter-ness that I screamed (so what, you can’t prove it). Ooh, and there are clones—glorious clones. Somehow, Elio blends all of this into a story that feels both intimate and epic.
My goddaughter Anna says: “It explores themes of loneliness and the need to fit in in a way that many people can relate to. Elio is an extremely well written movie. It evokes strong feelings in all those who watch it. It left me heartbroken at some points and cackling at others.” And honestly? Same.
I only wish Pixar had taken more risks with the ending. They went for the old-fashioned and prescriptive ending that doesn’t make a lot of sense for Elio or Olga as characters. It reminds me of the missed opportunity with Mother Gothel in Tangled, the stepmother doesn’t always have to be a bitter crone who never evolves, and home doesn’t have to be inside you all along. That, only that, left me unsatisfied. It’s a shame because otherwise, this is emotionally hefty and thematically electrifying and just so alien-cute and humanly-fluffy. Pixar’s Elio proves that even in the vastness of space, belonging is the ultimate adventure. (oh, and your real family always knows who you are).
Rating: B– (for that ending)
Level of Enthusiasm: 88%
