Pixar's Elio, the latest from the beloved studio, is the latest in a fantastic line of films featuring children as Earth's representatives against mysterious universal forces. Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial centers Elliot (Henry Thomas), who befriends the extraterrestrial E.T. against a host of domestic threats on his way to reconnect with his species. The Last Starfighter saw a young man achieve a high video game score before being recruited for an interstellar war. Lost in Space features a pioneering family, the Robinsons, who try to survive deep space trips intact with the help of their brilliant, young son Will Robinson and the family's Robot (Bob May). The escapist ethos of a child to find their place in the galaxy fuels Elio.
Altogether, Elio is an uneven yarn. The types of film it's intending to replicate are clear, but it's missing overall narrative clarity. The worldbuilding is exceptional (it's exciting from an audience's standpoint), but what Elio, Olga, and others want is dissonant in an unresolved way. It's a visually stimulating film that misses having a clear protagonist arc (does Elio want friends, closer family, adventure... what, exactly, is his space-bound motivation?) or a relevant perspective, and it's a shame.
Elio Benefits From Top-Shelf Voice Performances
Elio follows a young boy named, you guessed it, Elio (Yonas Kibreab), whose parents had since passed away. The broken-hearted young gent lives with his Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña), a Major in the U.S. military with a good heart but little time for a young boy to be thrust into her duty-laden life. Elio comes to be enamored with the idea of escaping into the universe.
He comes into contact with alien species representing the Communiverse, a consortium of interstellar planets and species, and represents himself as the ruler of Earth. The ruse puts the boy in the crosshairs of an intergalactic warlord, Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett).
Kibreab is adorable as the young, orphaned boy with an interstellar obsession. He's energetic and expressive, with a mischievous streak. Saldaña is great and complex as Olga, though she's relatively underutilized in the narrative.
The rest of the narrative features solid voice acting from Brad Garrett, Remy Edgerly (as young alien Glordon), Questa (Jameela Jamil), and others. The performances are good across the board.
Elio is best at its exemplary worldbuilding. The various species of the Communiverse are fascinating, with a wide variety of interesting and visually distinct designs.
It feels lived in, and viewers have considerable opportunity to explore this consortium of interstellar beings. We don't get to see these respective worlds, but the various alien characters feel fleshed out in stellar ways.
Elio Pivoted Major Character Arcs, & You Can Tell
Elio has a few narrative issues that keep it from meeting its potential. The characters have motivations and arcs, including Elio's, that don't quite mesh. It's painful to lose both parents, and it's well established that Olga is so busy that Elio's often alone. It's still a leap to, "I want aliens to take me to the stars, and who cares about Olga?" His arc is about finding friendship, but it's also about embracing his family.
Olga's arc involves an awkward pivot to appreciating and reconnecting to Elio, though it takes an odd detour through a clone. It rarely feels like she has a clear and distinct character, which makes sense why it feels like Pixar's careful storytelling missed her.
Olga was initially intended to be Elio's mother, played by America Ferrera. She and Elio never see eye to eye, but somehow a little clone time clears that right up. Glordon wants to find a way outside his dad's chosen path for him, and Glordon and Lord Grigon find a middle ground toward the end.
It's all a set of motivations that define these characters' arcs but don't congeal into a whole. They tell divergent stories about the story and its characters' journeys. It's not the first feature with characters sporting dissonant arcs (though hopefully this is remedied for the upcoming Toy Story 5), but Elio has gone through relevant story changes, and it's hard to escape that given the dissonance. It genuinely feels like these characters were conceived at different times for different purposes.
Elio has a number of funny moments and genre-bending horror scenes that work well in context. The film uses its set pieces well. The clones are often well-utilized for comedy and drama, and the proximity to a military base effectively utilizes them for solid drama at the end. Elio builds an interesting, thriving world, but the core story and central character arcs leave something to be desired.
Final Rating: 7/10
Elio hits theaters on Friday, June 20, 2025.
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