Movie Review: Elio

 

Note: This movie did not have a short film before us. I am a huge fan of Pixar's short films. I have often liked them just as much, if not more than the features they accompanied. Because of this I find myself continuously disappointed whenever a Pixar movie comes to movie theaters without an accompanying short. I hope that new shorts will come back to accompany all Pixar movies in the future. 

Michael's Movie Grade: B

A delightful Pixar film.

This movie's storyline about a young boy who wishes to be abducted by aliens because he doesn't feel like he belongs on Earth combines some typical Pixar charm with a Spielbergian style fantasy. If it doesn't reach the heights of the best Pixar films that is only because the best Pixar movies are some of the best family films ever made. This movie still pulls on your heartstrings though in a way only Pixar can. This film's greatest asset is the main character himself. Elio is a character that we can all see a bit of ourselves in. Most, if not all, of us have felt at one time or another like outsiders no matter where we are. Many of us as kids have fantasized about something similar to Elio's desire to find some place outside of this world where he would belong. This film taps into the basic human desire to belong and therefore will speak to most any audience, though especially to younger audiences. At the same time, we can relate to his aunt, who loves him but struggles to relate to or understand him at times. The relationship between them may be of a broken family but there is still a real sweetness behind it. The basic storyline is great having us see what we would have fantasized about as kids play out, while also showing us that we should not take what we do have in this life for granted. This may be a typical moral for a family movie, but it is very well told. This movie also benefits from some great visuals especially in the sci-fi environment we see in the second and third acts. 

This movie does have its flaws though. Despite this movie having so many comedic moments, none of them are that funny. I simply expected more laughs from a Pixar film. I also felt that the side characters we kind of bland and that the third act felt too neat and tidy to fully work. 

This movie was directed by Adrian Molina (co-director of Coco (2017)), Madeline Sharafian (who had been a writer on Coco, Onward (2020) and Turning Red (2022)) and Domee Shi (director of Turning Red and the Pixar short Bao (2018)).