There is a particular loneliness that turns a child’s gaze upward. It is a quiet hope, born from an earthly sorrow, that the vast, silent canvas of space might hold an answer, or at least an escape. Elio opens with this precise sentiment, introducing its young protagonist not as an adventurer but as a refugee from his own life.
The film reframes the classic science-fiction question, “Are we alone?”—voiced here through archival audio of astronomer Carl Sagan—into something far more intimate: “Am I alone in my feeling?” The cosmic query, rooted in the optimism of the American space race, becomes a deeply personal search for belonging for one small boy.
Elio is an orphan, a creative and sensitive child of Latino heritage, now living under the care of his well-meaning aunt. For him, the prospect of alien abduction is not a threat but a prayer—a fantastical solution to the grief that has made his world feel alien. His story is prepared not for a simple journey to the stars, but for a collision between profound internal despair and an impossibly grand external reality.
Escape Velocity from Grief
Elio Solis is a child defined by what he has lost. His intelligence and creativity are channeled not into school projects, but into the poignant bricolage of escape: a cape fashioned from plastic cutlery and soda tabs, a bedroom that serves as a mission control for his own departure.
This meticulously crafted identity is a defense mechanism against the grief from his parents’ death, a loss that has rendered his life on Earth unbearable. His guardian, Aunt Olga, embodies the sacrifice he cannot see. A major in the U.S. Air Force, she shelved her own ambition of becoming an astronaut—the very dream Elio projects onto the cosmos—to raise him.
This act of profound love is tragically misinterpreted by Elio as proof of his status as a burden, deepening the rift between them. He sees her life as a reminder of what he is keeping her from, not what she has chosen to give him.
It is from this emotional deadlock that he sends his own message in a bottle to the stars. When the universe answers, pulling him from a miserable summer camp into the luminous belly of a spaceship, it is more than a plot point. It is the literal manifestation of a desperate child’s wish, a symbolic severing from the world that hurt him. He has left his planet behind, but the problems of home have a way of stowing away.
Diplomacy in a Candy-Colored Cosmos
Elio’s arrival in space plunges him into the Communiverse, a structure that is both wildly imaginative and deeply familiar. Functionally, it is an interplanetary United Nations, a concept rooted in Earth’s own attempts at global diplomacy. Visually, however, it is a fantastical creation, a vibrant hub of whimsical architecture and playfully designed aliens that seems born from a child’s museum exhibit.
This contrast between a serious political function and a jubilant, candy-colored form is the film’s central aesthetic choice. It presents a complex world through the wide-eyed perspective of its young protagonist, making the foreign instantly accessible.
Into this grand assembly stumbles Elio, who is promptly mistaken for the leader of Earth. It is a classic sci-fi trope, but here it serves a sharp psychological purpose. For a boy who felt powerless and invisible at home, the sudden mantle of supreme ambassador is an irresistible fantasy.
He leans into the role not just for survival, but from a desperate need to belong, to finally have his existence validated on the largest possible stage. His new world is immediately defined by its key players: the fearsome Lord Grigon, a towering warlord whose aggressive posture threatens the Communiverse’s harmony, and Ooooo, a sentient, gelatinous supercomputer that embodies the sheer weirdness and wonder of it all.
Back on Earth, a humorous but telling subplot unfolds as a “perfect” clone of Elio takes his place, a flawless impostor whose behavior only deepens his aunt’s concern. Elio has found a place where he matters, but his newfound identity is a performance, a fiction presented to an audience of aliens. One has to wonder what remains when the mask comes off.
An Armor of One’s Own
It is away from the grand theater of intergalactic politics that Elio finds its affecting heart. The narrative pivots from public deception to private connection with the introduction of Glordon, the son of the fearsome Lord Grigon.
In a masterful piece of character design, Glordon appears as an endearing mix of a miniature Dune sandworm and a plump tardigrade, his soft, vulnerable form a direct visual contradiction to his father’s rigid aggression.
Their friendship is not born of convenience but of a shared, deeply felt alienation. Both boys feel fundamentally misunderstood by the powerful figures who define their lives. In Glordon, Elio finds the peer he never had on Earth, someone whose foreignness is less significant than their mutual feeling of being out of place.
The film’s most potent idea is crystallized in Glordon’s cultural inheritance. His people’s rite of passage involves encasing themselves in a mechanized armor, a literal hardening that symbolizes a submission to a warrior tradition. Glordon’s quiet resistance to this fate becomes a powerful, externalized metaphor for Elio’s own internal struggle.
The alien’s fight against a physical shell mirrors the human boy’s need to break free from his own emotional armor of grief and self-pity. This parallel is the engine of the film’s emotional development. The friendship forces Elio to look outside of himself, moving his character arc away from pure escape and toward empathy.
By witnessing Glordon’s struggle to preserve his “softness,” Elio is finally made to confront the walls he has built around his own heart. The first step toward reconnecting with his own humanity, it seems, is recognizing it in a creature from another world.
A Universe Built of Light and Sound
The world of Elio is rendered with the expected polish of a top-tier animation studio, even if it doesn’t represent a startling new visual paradigm. Its strength lies not in revolution but in execution. The design of the Communiverse is a spectacular creation, a joyful riot of color and shape that effectively communicates the overwhelming novelty of Elio’s situation.
The animation itself becomes a form of characterization; Elio’s bouncy, hyperactive physical presence is a direct externalization of his scattered mind and anxious energy. Similarly, the design for Glordon is a triumph of visual communication, managing to appear both alien enough to be from another galaxy and endearing enough to be a plush toy. The film’s aesthetic is a carefully constructed language, designed for maximum legibility and charm.
This visual language is supported by a robust auditory framework. Rob Simonsen’s score is a nimble accompanist to the film’s eclectic tones, soaring with orchestral grandeur during moments of cosmic adventure before retreating into gentle, melancholic arrangements for the story’s emotional core. It guides the audience through the film’s rapid shifts between spectacle and sentiment.
The voice cast provides the final, crucial layer of texture. Yonas Kibreab infuses Elio with a necessary blend of frantic vulnerability and childhood willfulness, while Zoe Saldaña gives Aunt Olga a grounded warmth. Brad Garrett’s deep register provides Lord Grigon with an archetypal menace that requires no translation. Every technical element is a finely tuned instrument, working in harmony to build this world.
The Gravity of Convention
For all its individual charms, Elio moves with an unsteady orbit, feeling less like a singular narrative and more like a collection of brilliant, competing ideas. The story juggles numerous plotlines—a boy’s personal grief, a high-stakes diplomatic farce, an action-oriented conflict with a warlord, a tender cross-species friendship, and a comedic clone subplot back on Earth.
The rapid pacing required to service all these threads sometimes comes at a cost, rushing past emotional beats that needed more space to breathe. This sense of fragmentation is most apparent in the film’s thematic trajectory. It begins with a bold, compelling premise: a lonely outsider who might genuinely find his true home among the stars, a radical validation of his feeling of otherness.
Yet, the narrative gradually pulls back from this frontier, pivoting toward a more conventional and arguably safer conclusion that reaffirms the primacy of terrestrial family ties. The ending feels less like a natural discovery and more like a course correction.
The sincere warmth of the film’s core message about empathy is undeniable, a testament to the powerful emotional moments it achieves. But one is left to wonder if these affecting scenes are enough to unify a story that seems so uncertain of its own destination.
“Elio” After its theatrical run will be available to stream on Disney+.
Full Credits
Director: Adrian Molina, Domee Shi, Madeline Sharafian
Writers: Adrian Molina, Julia Cho, Mark Hammer, Mike Jones
Producers and Executive Producers: Mary Alice Drumm, Lindsey Collins, Pete Docter, Matt Walker
Cast: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldaña, Brad Garrett, Remy Edgerly, Jameela Jamil, America Ferrera, Shirley Henderson, Matthias Schweighöfer, Ana de la Reguera, Naomi Watanabe, Anissa Borrego, Personajes Animados, Dylan Gilmer, Brendan Hunt, Jake Getman, Brandon Moon
Director of Photography (Cinematographer): Derek Williams, Jordan Rempel, Danielle Feinberg, Matt Aspbury
Editors: Steve Bloom, Anna Wolitzky
Composer: Rob Simonsen
The Review
Elio
Elio presents a magnificent, heartfelt spectacle that is unfortunately tethered to a fractured narrative. While its emotional core, particularly the friendship between Elio and the alien Glordon, is genuinely affecting, the film struggles to unify its many ambitious parts. It possesses the visual polish and moments of profound warmth expected from the studio, but its retreat from a bold premise into a conventional message leaves it feeling like a collection of beautiful fragments rather than a cohesive whole. It is a story with an immense heart, searching for a more confident direction.
PROS
- An emotionally resonant central friendship.
- Imaginative, polished animation and world design.
- Sincere and affecting messages about empathy and belonging.
CONS
- A disjointed narrative that juggles too many plotlines.
- An unsettled thematic focus that shies away from its initial premise.
- Rushed pacing that undercuts key character moments.
