'This is just who I am': Pixar's new 'Elio' explores loneliness

USA Today

7 hours ago

'This is just who I am': Pixar's new 'Elio' explores loneliness
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Zoe Saldaña talks new Pixar movie 'Elio'
Zoe Saldaña reveals why she can relate to the emotional message in her new Pixar film 'Elio.'
'Elio' is the latest Pixar animated adventure to explore friendship, loneliness and the importance of human connection. Our 11-year-old hero just to has to go out of this world to find his best pal.
In the sci-fi family film (in theaters June 20), Elio (voiced by Yonas Kibreab) is an orphaned youngster who lives with his Air Force major aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) but the quirky kid has a hard time getting along with her or other children. So much so that he yearns to be abducted by aliens.
Wanting to belong and thinking one's place is somewhere else are themes that touched Saldaña about the project. 'Kids can be pretty rough with each other. And adults, because we're juggling so many things and also dealing with our own sorrow, it's hard to completely understand children or give them time and space,' says the recent Oscar winner.
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Elio's dream comes true and he gets beamed up to a spaceship of the Communiverse, an organization with representatives from across the galaxy, and the kid has his mind blown by so many colorful and interesting creatures. They think he's the leader of Earth – and he doesn't go out of his way to correct them – but Elio really comes out of his shell when he makes fast friends with the blobby and gregarious Glordon (Remy Edgerly).
'Elio' takes the 'Are we alone?' question that we ask about our place in an uncharted universe and the possibility of alien life, and then riffs on it being something we ask ourselves when feeling isolated or unloved.
One of 'Elio' filmmaker Domee Shi's favorite moments is in the beginning, with Elio stretched out on the beach in the middle of a sandy crop circle that reads: 'Aliens! Abduct me!!!'
'It's like you want him to achieve his goal, but then you also feel bad that he wants to leave Earth,' says Shi, who wrote and directed the movie alongside Madeline Sharafian. 'He's tenacious. He's got one of the crazier drives out of any of the Pixar characters."
'Elio' trailer: Boy meets alien BFF in Pixar's sci-fi movie
A lonely 11-year-old boy dreams of being abducted by aliens and winds up on a spaceship in Pixar's animated sci-fi comedy "Elio."
The fact that this kid is pretty much done with our planet is "a tragic reflection of what's going on in the world today,' Sharafian adds. 'We've seen it maybe with Carl Fredricksen (in 'Up') and some other of our adult characters that there's this kind of bah-humbug feeling about the people around them. But to see it in a character so young is sort of heartbreaking.
'It was up to us to decide: Why does he feel this way about Earth and how can we change his mind?'
But it wasn't just Elio feeling forlorn. Olga, who dreams of being an astronaut, and her nephew get in arguments, and it's because she's worried about Elio, though he doesn't see that. 'She's doubting she even has the ability to be a good parent for him,' she says. 'And instead of him seeing that as this almost cry for help, he sees it as 'She doesn't want me.' '
From a more cosmic perspective, Glorgon's dad Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett) also wants to feel part of a community, specifically the Communiverse, but his aggressive nature is alienating. Because Hylurgians are a race of soft, squishy worm aliens, Grigon wears battle armor to shield himself and make him look strong and tough.
'Elio also has this internal armor that he's put up in himself, too, after his parents passed away,' Shi says. 'And this turning point for his relationship with Gordon is he lets his armor down.'
'Elio' reminded Kibreab, 14, of feeling lonely during COVID lockdown. 'It was sad because you couldn't really see friends, couldn't hang out with them,' he says. 'It was mostly on FaceTime. I couldn't see my sister often like I do now. And it was hard to find friends and find things to do during that time.'
Also, it's sometimes difficult for Kibreab to find peers because he does online school.
'I don't see kids that often. And when I do, maybe sometimes they'll think I'm strange because of being me,' he adds. 'A very important part that this movie talks about is just being yourself and to never change because of someone else. And I think that's kind of how I tapped into Elio.'
Saldaña also sympathized with Elio because she lost a parent when she was 9. Discovering and bonding with like-minded people in the art community helped Saldana face moments of loneliness.
'It turned out that there are people that feel lonely, too, (and) misunderstood that were really extroverted in their artistic selves but very introverted in their personal selves,' Saldaña says. 'I was able to realize that, one, I wasn't alone. And two, there's nothing wrong with me. This is just who I am.'