Review: 'Elio' (2025)

There’s never a dull moment in Elio, but not much emotional weight either. What it offers, though, is visual spectacle, nostalgia, cuteness and easy laughs.

Big themes of loneliness, grief, and alienation propel the story about a recently orphaned little boy named Elio (voiced by Yonas Kibreab). The film opens with Elio now under the care of his aunt, Olga (voiced by Zoe Saldaña), an astronomer. Elio is grumpy, sad — we follow how he wants to escape Earth, and, funnily, wishes to be abducted by aliens.

We can assume that Elio’s need to escape comes from overwhelming grief after his parents’ death. But that alone doesn’t fully justify his deep desire to remove himself from Earth. Yes, he overhears his aunt complaining about their situation, but the movie never builds enough of a sense of rejection or loneliness to make us root for Elio’s abduction. We’re told he’s hurting, but we’re not really made to feel it.

The movie seems eager to jump straight into the adventure. There’s humor in how Elio tries to make contact with aliens. It brings back a kind of nostalgia — the “X-Files” years before social media, when kids who were bored, nerdy, or lonely clung to alien conspiracies. That feeling is echoed in Olga’s geeky assistant, who’s also a believer.

As the trailer and poster already reveal, Elio does meet a band of aliens. There are parts that recall the 1986 Disney movie Flight of the Navigator. There’s a quick sense of excitement as we follow Elio discovering what’s out there. It’s all very bright and friendly. Even the expected alien probe moment is gentle and funny.

As always, Pixar delivers on animation. The design is colorful and detailed, though the world-building feels rushed. You get a vibrant “Communiverse,” but it doesn’t give you time to really explore or absorb it. There are cute moments and amusing tech — instant cloning, for example, and a ChatGPT-like assistant called the Universal Users Manual — but they flash by.

There’s also a villain. A sinister threat named Lord Grigon (voiced by Brad Garrett). But he turns out to be misunderstood. This is one of the film’s better messages: how we often judge others by appearance. It’s familiar territory — “don’t judge a book by its cover” — but it still works, and gives the story some much-needed empathy.

There are too many directors: Adrian Molina, Domee Shi and Madeline Sharafian. And too many screenwriters: Julia Cho, Mark Hammer and Mike Jones. The story ends up juggling too many ideas: parenting, empathy, grief, understanding and how self-absorption can blind you to other people’s pain.

Elio finds a kindred spirit in Glordon (voiced by Jameela Jamil). Their friendship is built through a quick, formulaic montage. It’s cute enough. Glordon is super adorable, even with a mouth full of teeth and no eyes.

But the other alien characters barely register. We don’t feel Elio forming any real connection with them. So when he later decides he wants to stay in the Communiverse, the emotion doesn’t land. It just feels sudden. His life on Earth wasn’t portrayed as awful, and his grief wasn’t explored deeply enough to explain why he’d want to leave it behind forever.

The film moves at a fast pace — which works if you’re just taking kids to the cinema. It’s consistently entertaining, even if emotionally thin.

Like most Pixar films, it goes for a bit of melodrama near the end. Messages about understanding, acceptance, and being content with where you are. Familiar, but fine.

Elio is a decent treat for kids and adults alike. I laughed more than my 9-year-old niece. But it’s not an iconic Pixar film. It’s mid-tier — fun while it lasts, but forgettable once you step out of the theater. Still, it’s cute, amusing, and worth the price of a mall movie ticket.

3 out of 5 stars

Opened 18 June in Philippine cinemas.