10 hours ago
Aliens, space and a blast of air-conditioning: 'Elio,' reviewed by 7 kids, 2 parents and 2 grandmas
Hello, people of Earth. I'm Suzy Byrne, and I've been covering entertainment at Yahoo for over a decade.
I'll be the first to tell you that I'm no hardcore cinema buff. Since I had a child, though, I've made it a point to see as many kid-friendly movies as possible. Maybe it's because I'm a big kid ✔ and I love a cheerful ending ✔. But also, as a busy working parent, is there greater joy than getting two hours to turn off your phone and put up your feet while your child is fully entertained?!
So that's what this is — one entertainment reporter + her 10-year-old child + usually friends seeing family-friendly fare, indulging in film-themed treats and replying all, to you, about the experience. Welcome to kids' movie club.
Space isn't such a bad place to be for two hours during a hot, sticky heat wave.
That's the energy I brought for our journey from Earth to the Communiverse, where much of Elio is set. Not only is the final week of school here in New York — shakes fist at sky — but it's 99 degrees when I pick up my daughter and friends for a matinee. I'm hot and wilted and have a pile of non-movie-going work to do, but away we go … to outer space.
We movie-d with seven children (who are in 1st through 4th grade) and four adults, including two very cool grandmas. The theater was full. The adults put all the kids together in one row and sat behind them, which I highly recommend. Outta sight, outta mind — which is great because this parent is outta stamina.
The long-delayed original film tells the story of a space-obsessed orphaned boy (voiced by Yonas Kibreab), being raised by his Air Force major aunt (Zoe Saldaña), who is struggling to make sense of his place in the world. His connections to his Earthling peers are short-circuited, and the eyepatch- and strainer-wearing kid is hoping with all of his might to be abducted by aliens. His wish comes true. Passing himself off as the 'leader of Earth,' he makes friends through the experience — so what if they're extraterrestrial ones? — and ultimately builds a closer relationship with his aunt.
The animated sci-fi film clocks in at 1 hour and 39 minutes and is — as my mother replies to every one of her text messages — 'fine.' There's nothing particularly surprising about it. It has a happy ending. It's not Lilo & Stitch or How to Train Your Dragon, though it definitely mirrors some of the Lilo storyline with Elio and Aunt Olga's relationship. The film also borrows from Inside Out about the importance of identifying feelings.
Feeling like an outsider is relatable for all ages. 'What if there's nothing about me to want?' cape-loving Elio asks at one point. 'I thought Earth was the problem, but what if it's me?'
There's also coping with bullies — that's why Elio has the temporary eyepatch, in a very non-interesting twist — and multiple characters feeling like they're not meeting the expectations of a caregiver.
'I may not always understand you, but I still love you,' Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett, who voices the antagonist) told his son Glordon (Remy Edgerly) in a humanizing — er, alienizing — moment in the movie.
It's a Disney film, not a horror flick by any means, but there were moments that were 'super creepy,' my young moviegoing friends felt.
They mostly involved Elio's clone — like when his strand of hair slithered around the house, Olga examined it under a microscope, and then, realizing it wasn't her nephew, she went into Elio's room and suspensefully pulled up clone Elio's eyepatch.
'I closed my eyes, but watched it through my fingers,' one girl in the group said on the ride home. I'll add that I don't think that — when there was hopefulness about the eyepatch, as far as representation — filmmakers needed to make it suspenseful like that.
Also, the kids were freaked out when Elio's clone did the zombie walk to distract the guard before melting so that the real Elio and Olga could get to the spaceship.
'I did not like the clone,' my daughter said.
Other unsettling parts were when the bullies with alien masks took Elio, and the 'Bring us your leader… please' part, despite the good manners.
This adult — and several of the kids — loved the slug-like alien Glordon, who is hands-down my favorite character.
My friend told me that I need to add a nap-o-meter because he predicted Elio would be the perfect film to doze off in. But the film started, he chuckled at a few parts, and I knew he wouldn't be sleeping. Plus, his food order took forever to come, so his burger anticipation kept him awake.
I fully would have slept if I weren't responsible for three of the seven kids. Though it's good, I didn't, as I got a 'Suzy, I have to go to the bathroom' midway through. I did, however, think about how I wasn't napping each time I saw a swaddled alien.
Speaking of food, my daughter and I had popcorn and cherry Icees — with 24-hour red tongues to prove it. The Elio-themed food offering was a box of Nerds, which I didn't even know they still make, so no.
Yes. We waited until the very end because one kid heard from another kid who heard from a third kid (very Ferris Bueller) that there would be bloopers. It turned out to be a teaser for Hoppers, one of Pixar's next offerings, showing a lizard over a phone pushing the lizard emoji over and over as a voice assistant repeatedly said, 'Lizard.'
That post-credits moment — technically not even part of Elio — was my daughter's 'favorite part of the movie,' which pretty much sums up our matinee experience.
I polled my friend and his kids for their review, using a 1 (worst) to 10 (best) scale. Dad said 6.5, 9-year-old daughter said 5, and 7-year-old boy gave it a more enthusiastic 8.
The grandmas? Full approval. But to be fair, they've seen fewer kid flicks lately and aren't running on fumes like the rest of us.
While Elio had a slow start at the box office, it's gotten a stellar reception from audiences and critics (with a 83% Rotten Tomatoes score). Here's hoping it finds its audience as summer progresses — or when it moves to streaming — and it has orbiting success.
