Elio review: Pixar's cosmic tale rekindles hope for a kinder world

The celebrated studio's joyous fable injects joy and optimism in dark times

Elio is the second Pixar film to be set in space, and the first to feature aliens. Photo: Pixar

In 1977, humanity sent out its first official message to the rest of the universe. Our representative was Nick Sagan, a six-year-old boy. His greeting was simple, delivered in English, pressed on to a golden record, and placed aboard an interstellar probe: “Hello from the children of Planet Earth.”

Elio, the second Pixar film to be set in outer space after Wall-E and the first to feature alien life, imagines what would happen if the universe finally answered back. Fittingly, our representative once again becomes an American boy – Elio Solis, 11, who dreams of being abducted because no one on Earth understands him since his parents died.

If Elio reminds you of Lilo in Lilo & Stitch, the remake of which is still in cinemas, I can hardly blame you. After all, in earlier drafts of that film the alien Stitch was going to meet a young boy. Chris Sanders, that film’s director, explained why they changed his foil into a young girl years later: “We wanted someone who was going to be in conflict with Stitch, and we realised a little boy might be a comrade.”

In some ways, Elio feels like a companion film to Lilo & Stitch. Both follow young lost souls – who read as neurodivergent without ever being labelled this explicitly – each struggling to connect with their guardian and the world around them. But instead of the alien coming to Earth, the boy goes to the aliens. And there, he finds his comrade – Glordon, a wormlike son of an alien warlord who resembles one of earth’s tardigrades, albeit slightly cuter.

Elio befriends an alien boy named Glordon in the film, Photo: Pixar

When Elio meets Glordon, he’s pretending to be Earth’s leader – sent on a diplomatic mission on behalf of the Communiverse – something of an intergalactic United Nations. Both want to be things they’re not. Glordon is set to become a tyrannical killing machine like his father – but his heart is too kind to go through with it.

The story is simple, verging on slight. In the main plot, Elio is on his space adventure, interacting with a fundamentally good universe whose only baddie has a softer side he’s lost touch with. Back on Earth, Elio sends a duplicate of himself made by his ship’s AI – a clone which pretends to be a perfect version of the young boy, outclassing him in nearly every way, or so it seems.

Elio in some ways feels like a companion to Disney's Lilo & Stitch. Photo: Pixar

This is a Pixar film. For a long time, that meant you were basically guaranteed a masterpiece. Over the past 15 years, after a few middle-of-the-road releases, the brand has lost some of its shine, but it’s still the gold standard of animation for good reason – even if it rarely reaches the heights of its first 15.

Where does Elio fall for me? I’d rank it squarely in the middle of the 20 non-sequels, not reaching the heights of Coco and Up but better than Elemental and Cars. Pixar films tend to reach for big emotions, and so that’s become my big test. The only way to know if the world Pixar builds has taken hold of me is if I end up sobbing when the emotional gut-punch is thrown – and Elio landed the hit.

While the early days of science fiction were replete with optimism, that’s become harder to find in the genre in recent years. Part of that is because science fiction always reflects the time in which it’s made, and we currently live in a more hateful, pessimistic world – where fear of foreigners has grown globally. As the world steers towards environmental catastrophe, it seems we’ve all become out our knives and forgotten that we need each other.

The villain Lord Grigon (voice of Brad Garrett), Glordon (Remy Edgerly) and Elio (Yonas Kibreab). Photo: Pixar

Elio is powerful not just because it imagines that the universe is fundamentally good, but that we are, too. In one of the most affecting scenes, a group of misfit strangers from across the world band together to help Elio and his alien friend survive. A better world is reflected in that sequence – the better angels of our nature.

I’m fearful that Elio, released just weeks after such a similar film in Lilo & Stitch, will be ignored. It shouldn’t be. And perhaps I shouldn’t worry, because great Pixar films tend to find their audience in the long run. And this is a story with broad appeal – made to help children once again dream of a brighter future – and accept that what makes them different is also what makes them irreplaceable. Parents might appreciate hearing that too. It's a message that we all need, at the moment.

Elio releases Thursday in cinemas across the Middle East