REVIEW: ‘Elio’ Gets Lost In The Stars But Mostly Finds Its Way Home

Directed by Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi, Disney and Pixar’s new animated original film Elio is decent. It’s held back by a heavy-handed script and one particularly distracting characterization, but overall, it’s a nice movie about finding your place when you’re feeling alone.

Elio begins in media res as it’s explained that Elio (Yonas Kibreab) was adopted by his aunt, Olga (Zoe Saldaña), after his parents died. It’s hardly an original concept for Disney at this point, and the movie never truly stands out among the countless Disney movies about orphaned kids. There is no specific reason the movie had to be constructed around this point to get across its themes of loneliness and unity. Nonetheless, it’s not a huge distraction, either. Moments after awkwardly introducing that point, Elio wanders off into an astonishing exhibit about space and is henceforth obsessed with trying to get himself abducted by aliens.

Elio is loud, doesn’t get along well with others, and even Olga has a hard time giving him love a lot of the time. He gets into fights with other kids and obsesses over trying to get abducted by aliens so he doesn’t have to be alone on Earth anymore. Olga, on the other hand, is hardly a character. Her only two notable traits are that she’s a poor parent and that she’s in the United States Air Force. The former is not presented very well. She basically can’t say or do anything right by Elio, who is so clearly struggling for love and attention in the wake of tragedy.

Olga’s Air Force affiliation is distracting and contrary to Elio’s message about peace.

The fact that Olga is in the Air Force, however, is ceaselessly imposed upon this movie. She’s not just in any air force—she’s in the U.S. Air Force. Its logo is everywhere, its name is on her uniform, and the base they live on is a major location of the film. This real-life, U.S.-centric detail is completely distracting in a movie that is otherwise totally displaced from reality.

Like so many movies before it, Elio builds its premise on the promise of the real-life Voyager spacecraft, which was sent into the great beyond with the hope that non-human life might come upon it. The golden record attached to the craft contains many languages and the hopes of all of Earth’s peoples. Elio himself even speaks multiple languages, including one he made up. Centering the armed forces of the United States in this otherwise universal story about intergalactic peace and friend-making is completely disheartening.

Especially because Elio is on a peace mission. Sure, Olga’s job in the Air Force is non-combat. However, her and the military’s place in the story are at total odds with the movie’s message. When Elio is abducted, after a few scenes of his being a misfit too many, he’s taken to the Communiverse. There, he’s mistaken for Earth’s leader. The Communiverse’s sole mission is to acquire knowledge through harmony. When they invite him to join them as the ambassador from Earth. Elio, feeling dejected on Earth and desperately craving attention, accepts the offer despite the lie.

Glordon and Elio’s relationship is the best part of Elio.

This is where the movie excels. The Communiverse is beautiful and very well designed. The alien designs and space technology are enjoyable, even if the human designs are the most awkwardly shaped version of Pixar’s now-infamous cartoonish proportions. When they stand in profile, they are strange to look at. When Elio accidentally gets in the middle of intergalactic politics and war, though, he meets the best part of the movie, Glordon (Remy Edgerly).

Glordon and Elio have a lot in common. Glordon’s mother is always away fighting in “the blood wars,” and his father, Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett), has grand and violent expectations of Glordon that Glordon doesn’t want to fulfill. The two characters become fast and great friends. They care truly about each other’s well-being as well as their wants and needs.

It’s great growth for Elio, who began the movie friendless, bullied, and completely annoying to everyone around him. Finding an equal, even a squishy alien that shoots webs like a spider, softens Elio’s personality and helps show him why having friends and family are so important.

Elio doesn’t reach its full potential, but it’s still satisfying nonetheless.

Together, the two new friends discover what they need to be happy and fulfilled. They also show real vulnerability and intimacy about what scares them and how they worry about how their adults see them.  In turn, their friendship is joyous and quite fulfilling.

The various alien ambassadors are fairly nondescript, but they’re serviceable for Elio’s growth and the movie’s plot. When the plot returns to Earth, however, it returns to unfunny and unappealing relationship dynamics. Fortunately, once the movie leaves Earth, it mostly stays away from Earth. But when it does, the terrestrial story is just not interesting.

If Elio didn’t spoon-feed its messages with obtuse dialogue, kept the U.S. military out of its business, and made Olga a bit fuller as a character, it would be a great movie. As it stands, however, it’s good enough. It’s hard to watch a movie about a kid looking up at the stars, discovering he was never alone on Earth, and not smiling at least a little.

Elio is in theaters everywhere June 20th.