‘Elio’ review: Pixar’s interstellar animation fails to hit the studio’s previous heights

Dirs: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina. US. 2025. 98mins

The best Pixar films make their dexterous mixture of humour, emotion and spectacle feel effortless but the ingredients do not blend as smoothly in Elio, a sweet, amusing animation about a boy who longs to be abducted by aliens so he can escape his unhappy life on Earth. He gets his wish but it does not turn out as planned, leading to an overstuffed, albeit bighearted story that feels a bit mechanical in its exploration of family, friendship and loss.

A collection of disjointed narrative pieces 

The studio’s 29th feature opens on June 20 in the UK and US, lacking big names in the voice cast outside of Zoe Saldaña in a supporting role. In between lucrative sequels to its blockbuster franchises, Pixar continues to create original properties, with 2023’s Elemental grossing $496m globally. (By comparison, last year’s Inside Out 2 amassed a whopping $1.7bn.) Elio’s sci-fi trappings should help sell the film for family audiences who have presumably already taken in the live-action remakes Lilo & Stitch and How To Train Your Dragon.

Yonas Kibreab provides the voice of Elio, who has been shattered by the tragic death of his parents. Now living with his sympathetic Aunt Olga (Saldaña), who works on an Air Force base but put aside her aspirations of being an astronaut to raise her nephew, the sensitive, wilful 11-year-old is enchanted by the prospect of intelligent life in the universe. He thinks that maybe, out there in the stars, he can find a place that feels like home, since he assumes incorrectly that his aunt does not want him around.

One day, Olga’s base picks up a signal from deep space, and secretly Elio manages to send out a message introducing himself to the aliens. When they respond, sucking him into their universe, they believe he is Earth’s leader. Desperate to start a new life, Elio plays along with their confusion, which requires him to confront a dangerous warlord, Grigon (Brad Garrett), who threatens to enslave the galaxy.

Boasting three directors — including Domee Shi, who helmed 2022’s charming Turning Red — the film juggles several themes, not entirely successfully. Elio’s despair over losing his parents sets the stage for a familiar, predictable character arc. Elio becomes more engaging once it becomes clear the boy’s showdown with Grigon is the sci-fi equivalent of the misfit child squaring off with the school bully. But this, too, proves only somewhat satisfying, paving the way for an unlikely friendship Elio sparks with Glordon (Remy Edgerly), Grigon’s kind son, who wants nothing to do with his father’s sabre-rattling. At last, Elio has found a pal – although their time together may be short-lived.

Releasing in both 2D and 3D, Elio is visually pleasing, the filmmakers capturing the wonder of space while crafting a wealth of colourfully designed aliens who greet the boy on his arrival in the Communiverse, a United Nations of sorts for the galaxy. Rob Simonsen’s score does its best to honour the picture’s disparate tones, ranging from tear-jerkingly emotional to gee-whiz exciting. Elio does not feature the same level of visual wit as Pixar’s finest achievements, but it does have its share of agreeably nerdy references to forgotten sci-fi properties. (Fans of the 1980s US sitcom Alf will be delighted by an unexpected shout-out.)

In recent times, Pixar has focused on adolescent characters trying to find their way, in pictures such as Luca and Turning Red. That tendency continues with Elio, which will inspire comparisons to everything from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind to E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial to Pixar’s own Wall-E. Kibreab brings a boy who has learned to cope with his grief by shutting it out, spending all his time plotting to be picked up by aliens. His battle of wits with Grigon and his growing bond with Glordon will force Elio to reassess his behaviour — specifically, how he has failed to appreciate his aunt’s sacrifices.

But the film never achieves that special magic that has long defined Pixar’s skilful storytelling. Instead, Elio feels like a collection of disjointed narrative pieces struggling to form a coherent whole. Touching scenes rub up against a needlessly complicated narrative in which Elio must eventually protect Glordon from his father — and that’s to say nothing of an extraneous, though occasionally funny, subplot involving an Elio clone who replaces him on Earth. Underpowered action sequences come off as obligatory, and the film’s deeper ideas about belonging and loneliness fail to flower fully.