ELIO. Starring (by voice) Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Remy Edgerly, Brad Garrett, America Ferrera, and Shirley Henderson. Directed by Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi and Adrian Molina. Rated PG (Mild themes and animated violence). 99min.
This film follows the adventures of an orphaned, 11-year-old boy, Elio Solis, who by accident becomes an intergalactic ambassador of the planet Earth after being beamed into space. Elio bonds with alien lifeforms, as he attempts to understand their ways.
On Earth, Elio (voiced by Kibreab) is a space fanatic with a highly active imagination, and is obsessed with alien beings. He is beamed up by mistake to Communiverse, an interplanetary organisation with representatives from galaxies that exist throughout the universe. They identify him as Earth’s leader and interact with him as Earth’s chief intergalactic ambassador. The film is replete with multiple characters and fantasy creations. Edgerly voices Glordon, a worm-like alien whom Elio befriends, and Garrett voices a worm-like alien warlord who is Gordon’s father. Saldana voices Elio’s beloved mother, Olga, who has passed away.
The film was conceived as a coming-of-age story, but is also a big-screen comedy-misadventure. Outer space is depicted in a translucent, luminous way that is attention-getting and characteristically Studio Pixar in design. While with the aliens, Elio matures from a boy lacking in confidence to a person, who learns to live with and accept the loneliness of his past. Elio finds a place where he can ‘belong’.
Pixar embeds fantasy elements in the story and exposes viewers to an extraordinary range of characters and situations. It powers the movie technologically by stressing vivid colours, extraordinary fantasy figures, and detailed textures. In doing so, the film avoids almost entirely soft environments and pastel colours that are more typical of the animation techniques of Studio Ghibli. Pixar animation is richly coloured, vibrant, and confronting, and in this film a complex narrative structure is used to communicate the scope of its animation.
Despite the excellent animation, there are some problems for the film in the enormity of its narrative sweep, especially with respect to the subtle psychological insights that flowed more effortlessly and singularly in films such as Up (Pixar, 2009), and The Red Turtle (Studio Ghibli, 2016).
Taking Elio from Earth to outer space and back again served to restructure the psychological thrust of the film somewhat distractingly. Despite this, this is a very good Pixar movie.
The quality of the animation stays indisputably Pixar all the way through, and continues to impress with its striking originality.
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Released 19 June 2025