The lights dimmed. The previews rolled. Halfway through the film, a father seated beside me leaned over and reminded his daughter that the movie wasn’t about running away from home and that there was a lesson to be learned.
“What lesson?” the daughter asked back. “I’ll tell you later,” the father said.
True enough, the second half of “Elio” delivered for Dad. The film’s message resonated with moviegoers — the young ones and the young once alike: it was about finding your place in the universe.
Today’s push into the cosmos is no longer about the Moon, It’s a high-stakes era shaped by private companies, billionaires and a new generation raised on Mars missions and satellite internet. Pixar’s “Elio” taps into this renewed fascination, reimagining first contact not through politics or conquest, but through the eyes of a boy still figuring out where he belongs.
The film’s namesake is an awkward, curious kid who finds himself yanked into space by mistake — mistaken, in fact, for Earth’s ambassador. One minute, he’s struggling to make friends back home with his aunt Olga; the next, he’s surrounded by glowing beings in the Communiverse, a sort of celestial United Nations made entirely of forms, tongues and customs he doesn’t understand.
It’s that mismatch — between what the universe demands and what Elio is ready to give — that makes the movie sing. There are echoes of “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” in its interstellar congress, a little “Dune” in its atmosphere, design and scoring, and a dash of “Stranger Things” in its resolution. But this is still, unmistakably, Pixar: soft-edged, sincere and more interested in emotional gravity than space battles.
There are nods that older viewers might catch — a passing reference to “HAM” (yes, that one) and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it montage where the protagonists lift what look like really enthusiastic mocktails.
As someone still adjusting to fatherhood, the story landed in unexpected ways. A timely release, too — coming fresh off Father’s Day.
The credits rolled. Pixar reminds us that the real journey is still the one we take home. I thought of that while racing through Cebu City traffic, eager to get back to my own little boy.