Elio
Pixar’s twenty-ninth feature returns a little to form in the story of an orphaned boy who turns to the stars for friendship.
Courtesy of Pixar/Walt Disney Studios.
Elio has never felt so alone. Following the death of his parents, the 11-year-old has been the responsibility of his aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña), a major in the US Air Force. Heaven knows, she tries hard enough, having put her aspirations to become an astronaut on hold in order to give Elio a life worth living. But nothing can break Elio’s sense of isolation and worthlessness until, one day, he wanders into an exhibit of the Voyager 1 spacecraft and is seduced by the words of Carl Sagan suggesting that due to the vastness of space and the probability of 500 million habitable planets, maybe “we aren’t so alone after all.” Henceforward Eliot brushes up on his ham radio skills and begs whoever might be out there to abduct him posthaste.
When the Latvian Flow won the Oscar for best animated feature – beating out the favourite, Pixar’s Inside Out 2 – it reminded us of the potential spell that the genre can cast. With Elio, Pixar returns to the world of the fantastical, featuring young children, spaceships and aliens. There is an awful lot going on here, perhaps too much to engage a young mind, but at least it doesn’t talk down to its viewership. Perhaps inevitably the film’s sentiments are worthy, promoting the values of family, tolerance and friendship, yet in spite of its variety of aliens and other worlds, there is a sameness about it all that blunts the magic. The photorealism of the imagery is predictably astonishing, although the human features are oddly incongruous. Elio is permitted a glabella notch (the frown lines between the eyebrows), although his aunt’s upper lip region is peculiarly prominent. It does give her a strangely alien look.
The film’s strength is in its comic detail and witty dialogue (“I’ve been called a liability, an enigma, a problem… but never a bargaining chip before!” merrily chirps one extraterrestrial hostage). There is also awe to spare which should capture the imagination of younger children, at least those not already dosed up to the eyeballs on E.T., Contact, Interstellar et al. And for those who felt that Pixar had dropped the ball with the nonsensical and hackneyed Lightyear (2020), Elio should reassure the dissenters that there’s still some ingenuity left in the Disney subsidiary.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Voices of Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldaña, Remy Edgerly, Brandon Moon, Brad Garrett, Jameela Jamil, Dylan Gilmer, Jake Getman, Matthias Schweighofer, Shirley Henderson, Kate Mulgrew, Carl Sagan.
Dir Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi and Adrian Molina, Pro Mary Alice Drumm, Ex Pro Pete Docter, Screenplay Julia Cho, Mark Hammer and Mike Jones, from a story by Adrian Molina, Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi and Julia Cho, Ph Jordan Rempel, Pro Des Harley Jessup, Ed Anna Wolitzky and Steve Bloom, Music Rob Simonsen, Sound Jeremy Bowker.
Pixar Animation Studios-Walt Disney Studios.
97 mins. USA. 2025. UK and US Rel: 20 June 2025. Cert. PG.
