Elio review – a touching treaty on the search for…

We first meet Elio Solis (Yonas Kibreab) curled up beneath a booth table of a din­er inside a muse­um. He’s a bit younger than he will be for most of the film, painful­ly shy and still reel­ing from the recent loss of his par­ents. His Aunt Olga (Zoe Sal­daña), recent­ly and unex­pect­ed­ly appoint­ed as his guardian, is strug­gling to adjust to her new role. While she’s momen­tar­i­ly dis­tract­ed by a col­league, Elio slips away and stum­bles into an immer­sive exhi­bi­tion on the vast­ness of space – an oth­er­world­ly encounter that will alter the course of his life forever.

What fol­lows is a deep obses­sion with the exis­tence of alien life. Though Elio is no longer shy per se, he remains social­ly awk­ward and has dif­fi­cul­ty form­ing friend­ships, not nec­es­sar­i­ly because his peers dis­like him, but because he unin­ten­tion­al­ly dis­tances him­self from them. He har­bors the belief that one day aliens will abduct him, but he’s reluc­tant to share. Sev­er­al rea­sons under­lie Elio’s intense long­ing to leave Earth: a desire to escape the painful mem­o­ries of being orphaned; a hope to encounter beings who defy con­ven­tion­al norms, and a yearn­ing to dis­cov­er a life beyond the ordi­nary lim­i­ta­tions of Earth.

After get­ting into a fight, Elio is picked up by his Aunt Olga and reluc­tant­ly brought along to the mil­i­tary base where she works. Curi­ous and defi­ant, he fol­lows her into a restrict­ed meet­ing, only to dis­cov­er that aliens have sent a mes­sage to Earth. Hid­ing in a near­by rub­bish bin until the room clears out, Elio seizes the moment. In a burst of des­per­a­tion and hope, he records a mes­sage of his own, plead­ing to the life forms on the oth­er end and shar­ing his dream of one day join­ing their world.

Not only do the extrater­res­tri­als receive Elio’s mes­sage, but they also respond. Ful­fill­ing his wildest dreams, they abduct him and bring him to the Com­mu­ni­verse, a vast inter­plan­e­tary alliance home to count­less intel­li­gent species. But here’s the catch: because Elio was the one to answer their sig­nal, they mis­tak­en­ly believe he is the ruler of Earth. Eager to impress the coun­cil of ambas­sadors who gov­ern the Com­mu­ni­verse, Elio assumes the role and does his best to live up to the title. When Lord Grigon (Brad Gar­rett), a war­lord of the plan­et Hylurg, threat­ens the very exis­tence of the Com­mu­ni­verse and no one else dares to nego­ti­ate, Elio ris­es to the chal­lenge, deter­mined to pro­tect the one place he final­ly hopes to call home.

It’s no sur­prise that as a lit­er­al child, Elio would fum­ble the nego­ti­a­tions, only man­ag­ing to fur­ther enrage Lord Grigon. While secret­ly plot­ting his escape, he encoun­ters Glo­r­don (Remy Edger­ly), the silk-worm-like prince of Hylurg and Grigon’s son. Adorable, naïve, and impos­si­bly sweet, Glo­r­don is the polar oppo­site of his father. He agrees to return to the Com­mu­ni­verse, ini­tial­ly as a pawn in the larg­er diplo­mat­ic game that Elio refus­es to back down from, but what unfolds instead is a heart­warm­ing friend­ship between two young out­siders who, for the first time, begin to feel at home, by each other’s side.

There are moments when the film feels slight­ly clunky, as if cer­tain sto­ry ele­ments either need­ed more time to devel­op or should have been sim­pli­fied. This is most evi­dent in the mid­dle act, where the con­cept of the Com­mu­ni­verse, while imag­i­na­tive, begins to feel over­com­pli­cat­ed. The same applies to its visu­al design – some­times less tru­ly is more. The abun­dance of col­ors and shapes, though ambi­tious, ends up blend­ing into a styl­is­tic blur. That said, the ani­ma­tion remains as tech­ni­cal­ly impres­sive as audi­ences have come to expect from Pixar.

The first act of the film is excep­tion­al and joy­ous to watch. Just as com­pelling is any­thing involv­ing the friend­ship between Elio and Glo­r­don, which ulti­mate­ly becomes the emo­tion­al core of the sto­ry. What tru­ly makes the film spe­cial is the remark­able voice work from young actors Yonas Kibreab and Remy Edger­ly, who bring their char­ac­ters to life with strik­ing authen­tic­i­ty. Their per­for­mances are rich with pas­sion, vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, and emo­tion­al nuance, con­vey­ing every­thing from child­like curios­i­ty to pro­found long­ing. It’s through their voic­es that the film’s heart beats strongest, ground­ing its fan­tas­ti­cal world in some­thing deeply human and moving.

There’s an unde­ni­able charm to this film that makes it easy to be daz­zled by. From its deeply lov­able lead char­ac­ters, who you can’t help but root for, to delight­ful sur­pris­es like a per­fect­ly timed Talk­ing Heads nee­dle drop and effort­less moments of humor. But what makes it tru­ly spe­cial is its heart­felt explo­ration of uni­ver­sal themes like grief, lone­li­ness, and the deep human desire to belong. It’s the kind of sto­ry that stays with you, gen­tly remind­ing us that no mat­ter where we come from, we’re all just search­ing for connection.

To keep cel­e­brat­ing the craft of film, we have to rely on the sup­port of our mem­bers. Join Club LWLies today and receive access to a host of benefits.