Light spoilers for “Elio” ahead.
Among a sea of revivals and remakes, Pixar’s newest offering, “Elio,” comes as a bit of a rarity— something original.
“Elio” follows its title character, a recently orphaned young boy obsessed with all things space. Feeling unwanted and out of place on Earth, he asks aliens, if any are out there, to abduct him into a new life. In true Pixar fashion, he gets his wish. Over the next hour and a half of runtime, Elio makes friends with the nice aliens and battles the evil ones, all while learning about what it means to belong.
The film comes at a unique point in Pixar’s history— all of their iconic franchises have enough installments to make further sequels hard to make without feeling like a blatant cash grab (although that hasn’t stopped the studio from announcing “Incredibles 3” and “Toy Story 5”). Their original films, then, are under tremendous pressure to perform. The only problem is that they largely aren’t— “Luca” and “Turning Red” received mixed reviews and the “Toy Story” spin-off “Lightyear” received mostly negative reactions.
While ”Elio” certainly doesn’t fall into the latter category, it unfortunately seems to match the former. It’s not bad, by any means. However, it’s also not a stand-out hit that will launch its own franchise or become a modern classic.
The film’s design is an enigma. It follows a cute-but-bland art style reminiscent of 2021’s “Luca,” but pairs it with cinematic lighting and an approach to cinematography rooted in live-action principles, utilizing variable depth of field and dynamic motion.
The visuals of space— particularly in the final sequence— are stunning. Capturing the majesty of the cosmos without sacrificing a consistent look isn’t an easy feat, but the artists at Pixar (perhaps unsurprisingly) pull it off wonderfully.
When combined with a set of interesting character designs and a healthy dose of Pixar magic, the film succeeds visually, though not universally so.
Structurally, “Elio” teeters between very creative and a little stale.
The opening, uniquely, relies mostly on atmospheric storytelling, after which the film limps its way through exposition until it justifies its animation with an abduction and kicks the story into action.
The second half of this film is noticeably better than the first, likely because it takes until around the halfway point for the stakes to fully develop, despite how abruptly they shift.
“Elio” often takes tonal chances, experimenting with horror-inspired sequences that are properly unsettling (though still family friendly) and some moments that lean into a thriller atmosphere with genuine tension. These departures are often bolstered by the score, an album of symphonic pieces that never stand out, but are always quality.
When it’s allowed to be, the film is unique and fresh— even the end credits are inventive enough to sit through, purely for the aesthetic— but it often feels pigeonholed into being the kind of film Disney thinks will perform well.
This middle-of-the-road substance means Elio, the character, has a lot riding on him— the film largely lives and dies by Elio’s likeability. Played by Yonas Kibreab, he ends up falling a touch too much on the overly-self-assured-child tropes, but is ambitious enough to root for while staying innocent enough to care about.
The heart of this movie is Elio’s friendship with Glordon, a young alien near his age (as far as aliens age the same way humans do), played by Remy Edgerly with enough heart and vulnerability to upgrade him from cute sidekick to secondary character that it’s impossible not to want the best for.
In a moment just past the halfway mark, Elio and Glordon sit on the equivalent of a rooftop and reflect on their shared struggles with belonging. Staring intently into the distance, Elio calls out, “What if there’s nothing about me to want?”
Glordon, putting his arm around Elio, responds simply, “I like you.”
Set across its backdrop of stars, the moment is incredibly moving and one of the best the film has.
Overall, the message about fitting in was charming and well-done, if not a little heavy handed and already done many times before.
“You are unique,” said Ambassador Questa to Elio in the film’s conclusion. “Unique can sometimes feel like a burden, but you are not a burden.”
In a different landscape, “Elio” would likely have been a solid family film, perfect for a rainy weekend at home. In this environment of sequels that can fall back on “Avengers: Endgame”- style callbacks and where every movie ever made is available at any time on streaming, though, it seems to have committed— to no fault of its own— the worst sin: it was unremarkable.
“Elio” is streaming on Disney+.
