In Elio, Pixar Tackles Grief And Growing Up

If you're taking a kid to see Elio, be forewarned: You're probably going to end up shelling out for some Glordon merch.

No, the products haven't dropped yet—the new animated kids' sci-fi film from Disney and Pixar has only just hit theatres—but its round, purple (and very toothy) alien sidekick is the kind of breakout star that sells a million lunchboxes. Alongside Elio, the film's erstwhile protagonist, and Olga, the stern but well-meaning aunt raising him, Glordon provides kids with a new model for open-hearted connection and offers a few soft lessons in emotional intelligence for the grown-ups in the room.

What to expect from Elio

In Elio, an 11-year-old boy who feels hopelessly out of place after the death of his parents is beamed up by a council of alien diplomats—and mistaken for humanity’s official leader. Elio (voiced by Yonas Kibreab) is thrust into a surreal cosmic adventure, while his aunt and guardian, Olga (Zoe Saldaña), a military analyst tracking space debris, scrambles to figure out what happened to the boy she’s been struggling to raise. As the story spans galaxies, it becomes clear Elio's journey isn’t about saving the world, but finding his place within it.

The film's over-arching themes—self-acceptance, facing up to family expectations and having faith in the impossible—are fairly run-of-the-mill as far as contemporary kids' films go, but Elio offers some fresh perspectives on family dynamics that Pixar hasn't explored before. Olga isn't a parent learning a lesson—she’s an aunt grappling with a role she didn’t choose, and Elio is a disconnected child who checks out rather than acts out. The result is a story that gets surprisingly granular about grief, loneliness and the push-pull of raising a kid whose mental health is suffering in our modern, human world.

Elio, from directors Domee Shi, Madeline Sharafian and Adrian Molina, has been in the works for some time. It was announced in 2022, but the release was pushed back multiple times, and a number of creative and crediting changes were made. The long production run is also explained by pandemic complications, the SAG-AFTRA strike in 2023 and, of course, the expansive efforts and resources required to produce the film's awe-inspiring, cutting-edge animation (the visuals are mesmerizing, lush, otherworldly and packed with imaginative visual detail).

The film's narrative arc might not be quite as inventive as others in the studio's catalogue, but taken on its own among this summer's remake- and sequel-heavy box office lineup, it's a standout original story that reminds us how rare it is to see a big-budget kids’ movie try something new.

Domee Shi describes her vision

Director Domee Shi can undoubtedly be partially credited with the nuanced family dynamics at play. The Toronto-raised animator joined Pixar in 2011 and rose to recognition with her Oscar-winning 2018 short film Bao, about a Chinese Canadian mother with empty nest syndrome who is given an unexpected second chance at motherhood when a steamed bun she makes comes to life. In 2022, Shi became the first woman with sole director's credit on a feature film for Pixar with her film Turning Red, which features a similarly nuanced take on tween identity and intergenerational tension.

As Shi explains, though, the challenges and triumphs taking place in Elio's family life are just as real as the ones all her characters face—the product of exhaustive homework and inspiration from his creators' lived experiences. "We're all about reaching deep down into our own past, our own childhoods, and drawing up all the stuff we've been burying for years and years," Shi says. Yes, Elio's psyche was shaped with the help of child psychologists (the team even consulted with US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy about his work to combat the epidemic of loneliness), but this character wasn't created in a lab. "We also sat around the story room and just shared stories about how we all felt lonely as kids, too," Shi says.

As for Olga, her earnest struggles to adapt to raising a child while pursuing a career were influenced by the experiences of the women on the team who've been there themselves: namely, writer Julia Cho, producer Mary Alice Drumm and executive producer Lindsey Collins. "They're all working moms," Shi says. "We're crafting these scenes in the writing room...just really trying to understand where Olga's coming from. That even though she feels like the bad guy, she's just doing her best. All parents are."

While the visuals soar, Elio stays grounded in real-world feelings. What’s the film’s message for people raising children? “That you're not alone. You're not alone in your struggles; in feeling like you're failing,” Shi says. It’s a heavy message in a whimsical, colourful package—that is to say, it’s classic Pixar, albeit with more cosmic punchlines and less narrative subtlety. Still, it hits where it counts. And that adorable Glordon popcorn bucket can catch any stray tears.

Disney and Pixar’s ELIO opens exclusively in theatres June 20.