Pixar’s latest animated film, Elio, takes audiences on an cosmic journey with an 11-year-old boy who suddenly finds himself as Earth’s representative. Voiced by Yonas Kibreab, Elio tells a familiar story that many can relate to – that of a lonely child struggling to connect with those around him. With stunning visuals and a heartfelt core, Elio aims to blend the emotional storytelling that is a Pixar trademark with an exciting sci-fi adventure.
Elio releases June 20, 2025 in theaters.
Official Synopsis
For centuries, people have called out to the universe looking for answers—in Disney and Pixar’s all-new feature film “Elio,” the universe calls back! When Elio, a space fanatic with an active imagination and a huge alien obsession, is beamed up to the Communiverse, an interplanetary organization with representatives from galaxies far and wide, he’s all in for the epic undertaking. Mistakenly identified as Earth’s ambassador to the rest of the universe, Elio must form new bonds with eccentric alien lifeforms, navigate a crisis of intergalactic proportions, and somehow discover who and where he is truly meant to be. Directed by Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi and Adrian Molina, and produced by Mary Alice Drumm, p.g.a., the film features the voices of Yonas Kibreab as Elio, Zoe Saldaña as Aunt Olga, Remy Edgerly as Glordon, Brandon Moon as Ambassador Helix, Brad Garrett as Lord Grigon, Jameela Jamil as Ambassador Questa and Shirley Henderson as Ooooo. The voice cast also includes Dylan Gilmer, Jake Getman, Matthias Schweighöfer, Atsuko Okatsuka, Ana de la Reguera, Naomi Watanabe, Brendan Hunt andAnissa Borrego. Featuring music by Rob Simonsen, “Elio” releases in theaters June 20, 2025.
Review – A Highly Entertaining and Familiar Story of a Boy Finding Friendship
A lonely child finds friendship with an unlikely creature is a story told in films time and time again. From E.T., and Iron Giant, to Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon, it is a story that makes sense to keep coming back to because of its timeless relatability.
Though the funny thing about Pixar’s newest film, Elio, is that it’s not really meant to be one of those films. While the film is set to be more of a coming-of-age story, with elements about finding your people, it accidentally finds itself sharing DNA with the other films mentioned above. Let me circle back around to that.
Elio is about an 11-year-old boy (wonderfully voiced by Yonas Kibreab) who lost his parents. Now being raised by his aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña), Elio becomes obsessed with making contact with aliens because, sadly, he can’t connect with the people of Earth.
Then one day Elio gets his wish – he makes contact! He is transported to the “Communiverse,” an interplanetary collection of aliens, where he is mistaken to be Earth’s leader. Elio then becomes friends with the son of a warlord, Glordon (Remy Edgerly delivering a HILARIOUS performance), who is a giant worm-like character. Eventually Elio realizes that he might be in over his head as he gets caught up in a massive intergalactic crisis.
Right off the back, I need to say that the film is GORGEOUS. Cinematographers Derek Williams and Jordan Rempel took plenty of visual inspiration from sci-fi classics like E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Ridley Scott’s Alien and John Carpenter’s The Thing. They truly succeeded in giving the film a look that echoes those movies but with a unique feel.
Elio also has the classic Pixar humor and delivers heartfelt emotion. Elio’s grief and loneliness can truly be felt, but the film truly succeeds in Elio’s friendship with Glordon.
Going back to the beginning of this review, it didn’t occur to me at first to compare Elio’s friendship with Glordon to those other films. The story’s main premise isn’t their friendship, like it is in Lilo & Stitch or Iron Giant, and yet, it’s still the heart of the movie. Unlike some of these other friendship films, Glordon can clearly communicate with Elio; they can talk to each other, tell jokes and share their fears and dreams. That communication, between a human and a space worm, adds a fun and unique element to the friendship. However, while the specific dynamic of the relationship might be different, just like those other films, Elio is a boy who struggled with human friendships, and only found this friendship in the form of an alien species.
As enjoyable as Elio and Glordon’s relationship is, the film does suffer from an over-bloated second half. While I did enjoyed recognizing the influences from other films, the story’s pacing started to suffer as they struggled to balance all the different storylines and elements that exist in those other films. They even heavily borrowed a concept from the 80’s cult classic, The Last Starfighter, and I’m not entirely sure the filmmakers realized they did it!
This shows me that the movie started to lose focus. It was doing its best to still entertain and be emotional, but it was bogged down by its own ambition. That doesn’t mean the film isn’t entertaining (which it is), but Elio doesn’t have as strong of an identity as a film like Turning Red.
The unevenness may be due, in part, to the directors being swapped during production. Elio was originally set to be Coco co-director Adrian Molina’s solo debut. However, he left the project to work on Coco 2, and taking over directing duties was Madaline Sharafian (director of the Pixar short Burrow) and Domee Shi (director of the aforementioned Turning Red).
While the directing duo made a valiant effort to rework the film (and again, I stress that it’s a very entertaining movie) you feel the film trying to find its identity under all the retooling.
But perhaps most folks won’t recognize that.
At the end of the day, the film still delivers on heart, humor and beautiful visuals.
Rating – 4/5 Pocky
Justin Quizon is a contributor to POC Culture. He is also a filmmaker and podcaster based out of Orange County. His credits include Lumpia with a Vengeance (associated producer), Nothing New: A Remake Podcast (co-host), and Dis+Diversity (co-host).
