Elio is a 2025 animated science fiction adventure film by Pixar that delves into the human nature of contemplating loneliness, be it in children or, in a broader sense, among adults as well. The film is centered around Elio Solis, a young boy recently orphaned and yearning for love and attention, as he wonders if aliens somewhere in the vastness of outer space would be better company for him than his disinterested aunt, Olga. While Elio is mostly catered towards children, it still makes for an entertaining and provoking watch for adults as well.
Spoiler Alert
What is the film about?
Elio begins at the cafeteria of the Montez Air and Space Museum, where a young woman is trying to read out the menu to a little boy with her, with her patience running thin because of his decision to not cooperate with her. As becomes evident very soon, the woman is Olga Solis, a major in the Air Force, who has recently taken over the responsibility of the little boy, Elio, who is her nephew. Very recently, both of Elio’s parents, meaning Olga’s brother and sister-in-law, have tragically passed away, leaving him orphaned and in the care of his only living relative—his aunt, Olga. But Elio does not really like Olga, for he feels that she is too busy with her own life and does not actually love or care for him, despite pretending to do so.
Therefore, Elio finds the slightest of chances to get away and explore places by himself, as he runs into a closed exhibit room of the museum at present. From this exhibit, he learns about the Voyager 1 spacecraft and the Golden Record on it, which is meant to be the first point of communication with any potential alien life form so that they can get an idea about who we humans of planet Earth are. Intrigued by the possibility of alien life forms, Elio starts to believe that they will be more interested in his company than the people of Earth, who simply do not care about him. He has the same opinion about Olga, feeling like an unwanted intrusion in her life, and so the boy sets out to make first contact with the aliens.
Elio begins his attempts at speaking with the aliens through his amateur radio, or ham radio, and even starts a group to bring together kids with similar interests. But the plan backfires as two kids, Bryce and his bullyish friend, Caleb, have a fight with Elio, leaving him with a bruised eye, and therefore having to wear a patch. Right afterwards, the boy sneaks into the control room of the air base where his aunt works and uses the terminal to transmit a voice message to outer space, asking aliens to come and get him from Earth. This act immediately blows out the power of the whole base, and Olga has to face serious trouble from her bosses.
Frustrated by his disciplinary troubles and clueless about what to do, Olga decides to send Elio to a youth camp, totally against his will, and the boy is even more nervous to find out that Bryce and Caleb have also been sent to the same place. The bullies do try to cause him trouble one night, but Elio’s fortune changes when a spaceship appears out of the sky and abducts him, much to his pleasure.
Why does Elio lie about being the leader of Earth?
When Elio is finally abducted by the aliens and taken to Communiverse, the boy couldn’t be any more thrilled. He learns that the Communiverse, as the name suggests, is a common meeting spot for intelligent beings from all over the universe, who all form an alliance to share their knowledge with each other. The Communiverse also actively keeps searching for more like-minded life forms, who can also become a part of the community and help in the progress of collective knowledge. What makes Elio even happier is the realization that he too can become a member of the community and stay on at the place without ever having to return home, if all the existing members decide to vote him in. Despite the groundbreaking discovery that he makes, of the existence of aliens, little Elio still remains fixated on his desire to never return to Earth, where he feels unwanted and unloved.
Therefore, when he finds out about the grand misconception that the aliens have about him, Elio does not bother to correct them and instead lies to fit in. The aliens do not have any idea about the political structure and the hierarchy of biological age among humans, as they have learned what little they know about us from the Golden Record, which they have found, and from Elio’s message towards the beginning of the film. Thus, the aliens mistake Elio to actually be the leader of Earth, who had reached out to them consciously in order to connect his planet with the Communiverse, which is not the case at all. However, only the leader of a planet will be handed a membership badge for the Communiverse, and so Elio ultimately lies about who he is.
More than anything else, Elio feels that if his real identity as an ordinary boy from Earth is revealed to the other members, they will not grant him membership, which would, most importantly, mean that he would have to return home. Only members of the community can stay at the place, and so revealing his real identity is not on the cards for Elio. The sudden passing of his parents, the confused and overwhelmed reaction of Olga to having to adopt her nephew, and then the traumatizing bullying have had such a deep and scarring impact on Elio’s young mind that he feels that anywhere, even an alien community lightyears away from Earth, will still be more hospitable towards him than his actual home. Thus, he keeps up the pretense of being the leader of Earth and wants to secure membership of the Communiverse as soon as he can. This turns out to be quite difficult, since an alien warlord, called Lord Grigon, threatens to attack the community after being denied a membership. While the Communiverse is a peaceful union aimed only at spreading knowledge, Grigon wants to make use of its vast resources to wage war by combining it with the deep pool of weapons at his personal disposal. He is naturally denied entry into the Communiverse, and the vengeful warlord threatens to attack in response. As per the rules, the vote to accept any new members cannot take place under such a tense condition, and so Elio will have to bide his time. Fearing that he might have to return to Earth soon, Elio promises he’s a master negotiator and offers to go to Lord Grigon’s home planet of Hylurg to hold peace talks with him.
Why does Glordon agree to go with Elio?
Upon reaching Hylurg, Elio learns more about Lord Grigon, and specifically about the aliens living on the planet, from the warlord’s only son, Glordon. Beneath the tough armor, Lord Grigon is actually a soft worm-like creature, which is what the inhabitants of Hylurg basically are. But being a bloodthirsty species, they have a special coming-of-age celebration during which a young adult alien is given their personalized armor, which has numerous weapons and defense systems inbuilt. As Glordon is still in his worm phase and is very friendly as well, Elio decides to take the alien along with him back to the Communiverse in order to use him as a bargaining chip against Lord Grigon. Elio does not intend to hurt Glordon at all, as the alien soon becomes his best friend, but he also does not miss out on the chance to take advantage of the situation to ensure his membership in the community.
Glordon also readily agrees to travel with Elio, despite knowing very well that his father will not be told of this journey, and that will naturally cause the latter to get worried about his well-being. The real reason Glordon agrees to go with Elio is that he too has a deep-rooted sense of fear and insecurity in him, just like the boy himself. Although Elio’s desire to leave his home planet is rooted in a feeling of extreme loneliness, Glordon actually fears presenting his real wishes in front of his father, as he is scared of disappointing the warlord as well as of facing the hot-headed alien’s fury. In reality, Glordon does not want to become a warrior after growing up, and he has no interest in wearing the armor that has been made for him. Instead, he just wants to remain the way he is, and he also wants to stay away from violence and bloodshed as much as possible. Therefore, Glordon feels that going away from his home planet and his father might just allow him to live how he wants to.
Does Olga really not care about her nephew?
In order to keep the matter of the abduction a secret, the aliens at Communiverse create a clone of Elio, out of goo, to send back to Earth and cover for the real Elio. This clone, Elio, is very well-mannered and enthusiastic about everything, which Olga initially enjoys a lot, but soon she starts to grow suspicious. Although Elio is not mature enough to understand the situation, Olga is perhaps in an equally difficult position as him, as she genuinely wants to give the boy all the love and care in the world, but is very confused about how to do so, since she has never been, or perhaps even thought of being, a mother in her life.
Having to look after a grieving boy, who is emotionally in very bad shape, is never easy, and it is even more difficult for the professionally motivated Olga. She still readily makes sacrifices for him as much as possible, like postponing her participation in the astronaut program, despite being eligible and interested in it. Given the circumstances, it would have taken some time for both Elio and Olga to figure each other out and accept themselves as a unit, but Elio flees the planet before anything like this can happen. However, he eventually learns that his aunt does actually care for him when he falls back to Earth through a portal.
Although Olga could not express her true feelings for Elio at the beginning of the film, she had grown close enough to him to understand his character and personality. Therefore, when the clone Elio is too sweet around her, she suspects exactly what has happened and conducts thorough research on alien abductions. Olga even goes to the extent of modifying the lights used by Elio earlier to somehow reach out to the aliens and ask them to return her nephew. This discovery ultimately makes Elio realize that he is genuinely loved and cared for by his aunt, who also needs some support and patience from his side.
Did Elio save Glordon from dying?
Thus, when Elio tells everything to Olga and seeks her help in saving Glordon from dying, she immediately jumps in to assist him, even going against the army and her workplace in the process. Olga and Elio together fly their spacecraft back towards the Communiverse, and they rely on information provided by thousands of ham radio users from all over the Earth to make their way through a debris field. Ultimately, they are able to take Glordon back to the community, where Lord Grigon and his army of aliens have already attacked and captured all the other members, but Glordon seems too sick to be able to recover.
This is when Lord Grigon does something unexpected and, in turn, teaches a valuable lesson to Elio and perhaps the kids watching Elio with their parents. Although Grigon had always been tough on his son with regard to becoming a fierce fighter once he grows up, he was internally aware of his son’s desires to stay away from warfare. This is why Lord Grigon could easily identify the goo-clone version of his son earlier in the film, as he knew that Glordon would never show enthusiasm about using guns and waging war. Despite his extremely tough exterior and appearance, Lord Grigon loves his son dearly, to the extent that he sacrifices his pride and ego to come out of his armor immediately and use his powers to heal Glordon.
When Glordon then admits his real wish, of not becoming a warrior, to his father, Lord Grigon accepts his wish and suggests that he could have simply spoken his heart out to him. The valuable lesson here is that children should always open up to their parents and tell them about their deepest fears, frustrations, and wishes before taking as drastic or rash a step as leaving home, thinking that doing so would solve all their problems. It is ultimately conversations that heal situations, and at the end of “Elio,” Lord Grigon also realizes his mistakes and apologizes to the various alien ambassadors at the Communiverse. In turn, Lord Grigon is finally made a member of the community after he promises to not use his knowledge and skills for destructive purposes.
What happens to Elio and Olga?
In Elio’s ending, the alien ambassadors at the Communiverse give Elio the badge marking his entry into the community, meaning that he can finally stay at the place. However, this whole experience has completely changed the boy’s mind, and Elio heartwarmingly chooses to return to Earth with his aunt. Seeing the dynamics between Lord Grigon and Glordon, Elio learns that it is better to open up to one’s parents and to give them time to understand, and so he realizes that Olga deserves his love and attention as much as he deserves hers. Thus, he does not want to stay away from her anymore and learns to be a better nephew to his loving aunt.
But more importantly, Elio also learns about the beautiful feeling of unity and togetherness, which he experiences through the communications with Bryce, Gunther Melmac, and all the scientists and ham radio users who help him and Olga out during their flight through the dangerous debris field. Although none of these strangers, other than the first two, know Elio or Olga personally, they put in all their efforts to help them out in their time of need. From the beginning, it had been the themes of loneliness and the very human struggle to be alone that had been at the center of Elio. Now, finally in the end, the protagonist is able to learn the true value of human connections, which is enough to convince him to return to Earth, which is perhaps the most unique planet because of the unity of our humankind.
