Elio is the perfect pitch for me – a Latino kid who believes in aliens actually gets abducted by aliens?! With a love for the stars at an early age, I as always fascinated by NASA. A journey around the moon would have thrilled me when I was Elio’s age. Eyes glued to the screen at take off and landing.
That’s what I was doing when, half a century after first attempting it, humans finally went back to space for science. The ARTEMIS II mission buzzed all around me. I came across a space exploration display at my public library, and finally checked out Elio, ready for Pixar to revive me.
And as much as I wanted to feel something, Elio left me wanting a bit more. More character depth and relationship building. More color on Earth. More space exploration that doesn’t make me think of Jeff Bezos or Katy Perry.
But what do I know? Maybe, life has just made me less Elio and more like Tia Olga.
Has Pixar Lost Track of Our Heartstrings?
While there were giggle pockets and heartstring moments, Elio felt formulaic, not enough soul. Latinos in space is a good concept, but the film misses the opportunity to connect who we are with how Elio really sees the world. There are hints of our culture on screen, but the camera moves so fast, you can blink and miss them. The ofrenda at Tia Olga’s house, the conchas at the alien buffet – these details feel more like a nod and less like an integrated element.
The best Pixar films lean into culture and generational trauma. Elio danced around the edge of a found family dynamic and couldn’t quite lean into it. This film touches on a lot of elements, but even thought it’s got the relatable backbone of human loneliness, it doesn’t really explore Elio’s grief. And they could have given more depth to Tia Olga’s character and her mourning to make the two’s relationship a stronger emotional touchpoint.
The film brushes the surface of a tia and nephew relationship that, unfortunately (and quite literally), gets lost in space. This family dynamic has so much Lilo and Nani potential (the animated Lilo & Stitch, we don’t talk about the live action). Tia Olga even gets a line with a broken flashlight – mierda. Girl, same. But I wish they had built her character up more. We get one bonding moment between the pair (shoutout to Vicente Garcia), but (spoiler alert) it’s with Elio’s clone!
Houston, We Have a Problem
Watching this film around the same time the four astronauts were on a historic mission in space makes me wonder what Elio would think of the Artemis programme. On the surface, it seems like any space travel would please Elio. But the more I try to tap into the nostalgia of space exploration, the more I think about how we are just scratching the surface with a lunar orbit. So I settle knowing that Elio would have wanted more. Something beyond a quick trip around the dark side of the moon. Something that makes us feel less temporary. Less alone.
There’s something strange about contact with space that brings us together. Elio relatably draws sand angels, asking the aliens to abduct him. A temptation of the great escape. Amidst the well-known male loneliness epidemic, Elio’s gentle masculinity paints the picture that adventure is out there, but deep inside, his loneliness still survives. Even with Elio’s sense of wonder, our human fear of being alone follows us everywhere. Even in space. The one glimmer that Pixar could wrench its regular tears in this one is when Elio is left on the beach and says, “No, don’t leave me.” But where was the Carl-and-Ellie-married-life flashback with his parents? Make me feel something – please.
I used to look forward to things like the Olympics, the FIFA World Cup (okay, maybe I still do), international missions to space. They united us. Flags and colors. Spaceships and pictures of Earth. When my family WhatsApp blew up about ARTEMIS II, I realized that space news didn’t fill my sense of wonder as much as it used to. Did the newfound obsession of billionaires and celebrities getting to go to space in phallic-shaped rockets make me numb? Yeah, actually. It did. Elio would have hated that new space trend and petitioned for more NASA missions tied to infinity and beyond.
No Wonder Elio Wants to Leave Earth
There was a new picture of Earth taken from the ARTEMIS II mission, and I couldn’t help but notice that Earth looked… tired. Dull. We’re ringing her out. She’s missing her color. How do we turn the brightness back up? Stop turning everything into millennial grey? Maybe the reason I can’t watch another rocket go to space is because nothing has changed here on Earth. There’s still no answer to our loneliness, and we are all dreaming of a great escape.
In contrast to Earth’s new profile pic, the space inspiration in Elio feels very fluid. Showing how outside of Earth, there’s color and a magical openness. Universes filled with liquid computers that are squishy technological assistants bridging together collective task forces. It’s a strong choice to take inspiration from water in imagining space – creating a vivid shapeshifter compared to the dull rock scenery of Elio’s SpaceX base.
While I didn’t get the Pixar heart explosion I wanted, I can’t stop thinking about the color contrast between the two universes in Elio. As our world continues to go up in flames and we keep launching rockets into the atmosphere to take new pics – there has to be something more down here. Something beautiful we can still hold on to. Not showing the color of our bright worlds makes our films feel duller. Less human. More lonely. To my surprise, Elio didn’t make me want to look at other planets in different universes. It made me want to find color here on Earth.
