★★★

There’s a nostalgia premium to the Pixar original experience these days. It’s in the combination of formula familiarity, winsome messaging and – for the grown ups at least – the reminiscence of a bygone era in which Pixar could do no wrong. Uniform commercial and critical acclaim has long evaded the Disney-owned studio, with no Pixar original enjoying box office success since 2017’s Coco. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that their latest attempt at reasserted relevance recalls that particular Mexican favourite in more ways than one. Where Coco mined themes of belonging, familial fracture and loneliness from the Land of the Dead, Elio seeks the same in taking its hero to the cosmos and into a space where no one can hear you reach for your hankie.

From Turning Red director Domee Shi and first time featurist Madeline Sharafian, Elio dabbles somewhere in the remits of E.T., Close Encounters, and Hitchhiker’s Guide. It’s a little bit Spielberg and a lot Douglas Adams. Yonas Kibreab is Elio Solis, spirited tween, trauma tinged orphan, and endearing space-mad oddity.

As we find him, Elio’s in the care of wing-clipped aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña), an Air Force major with astronautical ambitions, grounded by Earthly responsibilities. The desperate sadness of Elio’s grief needs little signposting but there’s admirable restraint in the film’s depiction of a grieving sister, derailed, and hopelessly out of her depth when it comes to cracking through the hardened shell of her nephew.

Success comes only during the pair’s visit to a space exploration museum, in which an absconding Elio stumbles upon the story of Nasa’s Voyager 1 space probe, which launched in 1977 and continues to gather interstellar data to this day. He’s entranced – and so might you be. It’s certainly a dazzling introduction to the great beyond, brilliantly realised and splendidly three-dimensional in its rendering.

For Elio, born is a universality of new possibilities, most potently that there may be someone out there capable of loving him, as did once his beloved parents. Conflated is that very human anxiety that we may actually be alone in the Universe with a young boy’s fear of navigating a great big world without his mum and dad.

Much that such themes are easy fodder for the Pixar machine, Elio struggles somewhat to fully engage in its opening third. There’s a sense that the film Sharafian and Shi actually want to make is the friendship-driven romp that is born of Elio’s transition to outer space and that the Earthbound exposition preceding it is but an inconvenient delay. A lot of pieces must be arranged before Elio’s much-longed for alien abduction can occur and the setting up itself can’t help but feel rushed. Your capacity to bridge the drag may depend on your love for the pay off. As things proceed, Elio morphs into a film of a great many delights; funny, thrilling and thoroughly heart-wrenching.

Abducted to the Communiverse, Elio is mistaken for the leader of Earth and offered Ambassador status if he can first prove his mettle. It’s in the process of doing so that he befriends happy go lucky Glordon (Remy Edgerly), a giant alien maggot with more teeth than sense and a web-yarning rear. He’s also the son and heir to Brad Garrett’s heavily-armoured Lord Grigon, a vengeful warlord with intergalactic destruction on his globular mind. Let battle commence. Battle, that is, for both the Communiverse and for a child’s right to live the life they choose, rather than that which is expected. It’s extra relatable, extraterrestrial stuff.

Pare back the noise, not to mention a slew of gleeful gags about breath mints and make-believe languages, Elio mines charm in the simplicity of its own familiar core. The Pixar premium. Elio and Glordon are buddies in the grand tradition of winning twosomes from Buzz and Woody to Ember and Wade, and all those in between. It’s what they do well – well, and often. If there’s little surprise in the film’s ultimate destination, the oodles of fun along the way make for a jolly good ride.

T.S.