Elio: Life Lessons for Kids and Grownups Propel the Latest Delight from Pixar
By Karen Gordon
Rating: B+
If you're looking for a little kid–friendly movie, Pixar’s delightful new animation Elio is just the ticket. The film — about a space-obsessed child who desperately wants to be abducted — is populated by colourful, whimsical aliens that look a lot like the kind of toys you'd give a toddler. Even the bad guy looks enough like a Transformer for visual comfort level.
As always, Pixar delivers a storyline that will speak to your kids, with messages about self-confidence, love, and tolerance. This last one is a biggie these days. There’s also a deeper, more psychologically resonant story for adults.
Narratively there’s nothing new, but at its core Elio is the story of an open-hearted little boy searching for his place in his universe, by projecting that longing out into the universe.
Elio Solis (Yonas Kibreab) is an energetic, curious, space-crazy 11-year-old orphan. He lives with his aunt Olga Solis (Zoe Saldana), a well-respected major in the Air Force who works on the local base and has stowed her ambitions to enter the astronaut program to raise her nephew.
In the film’s great metaphor, Elio is obsessed with the idea that aliens exist. And he wants to leave Earth and go off into space to live with them. To that end, he’s a ham radio nut who has customized his unit hoping to speak to whomever can hear him out in space. This laser focus makes trouble for him, sparking confrontations with peers and adults alike, his high jinks driving his disciplined aunt Olga to the edge of her tolerance.
But Elio won't be discouraged. Through dumb luck, one of his messages is received by a group of aliens, and Elio finds himself pulled up in a tractor beam to the Communiverse, an interplanetary organization with representatives from across the galaxy.
He’s first greeted by a little computer that offers him a bubbly drink, outfits him with a translation device (so he can understand everyone) and a gravity device, then takes him to meet what amounts to the Communiverse’s board of directors. Based on Elio’s message, this diverse group of aliens think he’s Earth’s leader. He’s going to be with them for a while, so the aliens send an Elio clone back to Earth so no one notices that he’s gone.
Elio is one of two candidates the council is considering for membership—they can only choose one at a time. And so, he’s invited to come along and listen to the pitch by his competition, Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett) ruler of the planet Hylurg.
He’s a gigantic being, with a booming voice, who looks like a Transformer with two set of eyes who talks boastfully and aggressively enough to worry everyone. When they reject his application, Grigon goes ballistic (kind of for real), and threatens the Communiverse with destruction. Things are tense.
That’s when Elio steps up. Wanting to prove his mettle, he announces confidently that he can negotiate with Grigon. He quickly reads up on conflict resolution as the council loads him into a little sphere-shaped shuttle and send him to Grigon’s ship where things go well… and then not so well.
In the process, Elio meets Grigon’s son Glordon (Remy Edgerly) who, like Elio, is a kid. Glordon quickly reveals the secret behind his species’ constant ferocity. Despite being from completely different species, Elio and Glordon form a bond that will change things for everyone.
Although the film has enough tension and drama to hold attention, it’s easygoing. Elio is a happy, sweet positive boy, and although we understand that he doesn't feel comfortable with his life, or that he fits anywhere on Earth, he’s not morose or easily discouraged.
That includes a moment when he checks in to see how his clone is doing. Elio sees aunt Olga interacting the Elio clone, who is perfect. Perfect manners, perfect demeanour, and a fantastic chef, who even does the dishes. It underlines a sense of disappointment in himself.
But aunt Olga is not so easily fooled, something Elio doesn't see — but we do. That perfection is not what she is looking for in him or why she loves him.
It’s part of the biggest message for kids, who can feel like they don’t matter or that they never get things right or they just don’t fit in. Wanting to run away with aliens into space or another planet where he’ll be unique is a lovely metaphor for aiming to find your place in the universe where you’ll be seen and accepted as you are, flaws and all. That theme speaks to adults as well.
Three directors collaborated to make Elio, including Canadian Domee Shi, a graduate of the Sheridan animation program who won an Oscar for her 2018 short Bao, and was Oscar-nominated for her 2022, Toronto-set Pixar film, Turning Red.
Elio. Directed by Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, and Adrian Molina. Voice cast: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldaña, Brad Garrett, Jameela Jamil, Remy Edgerly, Atsuko Okatsjka, and Brendan Hunt. In theatres June 20.