Elio ~ Review

As adults, it is easy to forget how alienating childhood can be. If you do not fit in with other kids, childhood, particularly adolescence, can be extremely isolating. It can be so isolating that, perhaps, being on another planet would be preferable to this one. There has been a trend lately in movies and TV that for lack of a better term, I’m going to call it the “wherever you go, there you are" trend. We are awash in stories about people stuck with the same emotional baggage wherever they end up. TV shows like White Lotus, Succession, and Severance –are all grappling with people unable to leave behind their emotional baggage. And while I think this is an interesting critique of classism, it also tends to feel deeply cynical. As if, we are incapable of change, and no matter what we do we are stuck. I guess that's the question, right? How do we move beyond our baggage? Perhaps, the way forward is through empathy and caring for others.

After the death of his parents, Elio Solís (Yonas Kibreab) moves in with his aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña). The transition has not been easy. Olga had to give up her aspirations of becoming an astronaut to take care of Elio, and is now working in communications for the military. Elio is a bright, but lonely kid. Inspired by the Voyager 1 spacecraft, Elio is obsessed with the idea of life in space. He’s constantly listening to Carl Sagan's speeches, messing with his ham radio, and lying on the beach with the words “ALIENS ABDUCT ME!” surrounding him. Elio’s obsession with outer space and aliens has not garnered him many friends and in fact, he actively pushes his peers away such as Bryce (Young Dylan) and Caleb (Jake Getman) leading to a fight. Elio longs for something bigger and greater than what Earth can provide him. One day, a satellite Olga is working on receives a message from outer space wanting to contact Earth's leader. Elio responds to the message which causes the aliens to believe the kid is Earth's ambassador.

Elio is whisked away and taken to the Communiverse, an intergalactic federation of the greatest minds throughout the galaxy. They want Earth to join. It’s everything Elio has been hoping for and enchanted by this utopia, he decides to “fake it” as Earth’s ambassador.  Unfortunately, another ambassador wants to join the Communiverse – the brutal Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett). Elio tries to negotiate with Grigon, and in the process, ends up meeting the warlord’s son Glordon (Remy Edgerly). Now Elio has to pull off this ambassador ruse before he’s found out and keep his budding friendship with Glordon.

Elio is a wonderful film. It takes its cues from E.T. and The Last Starfighter, but makes something wholly original out of elements from those films. On paper, the story might seem like there's too much going on. While the script by (Julia Cho, Mark Hammer, and Mike Jones) covers a lot of complex emotional ground such as; grief, alienation, and anxiety. However, like all the best Pixar films, the film is kept simple. That does not mean the movie is predictable or trite – in fact, in many places the film zigs where you expect to zag.

Directors Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi and their army of artists create a rich alien world – where the various creatures and environs of the Communiverse feel different, but not completely unrelatable. That’s a hard task to pull off, but the creative team manages to do it with aplomb.

Like most Pixar movies, the cast is great. They imbue their characters with a sense of reality. These are characters who make jokes but can be deeply wounded. Elio is a complicated character and could come off as extremely standoffish, but Yonas Kibreab’s voicework gives Elio depth and an infectious likability. Remy Edgerly’s Glordon is a lot of fun, too and he brings a beating heart to the film.

It is true, wherever you go, there you are – but with people around who care about you, maybe we can get out of our way and move past the emotional baggage following us.

Three and a half stars out of four.