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Who would be a child — or a corporate subsidiary? As Disney grinds through endless pinched live-action remakes of its back catalogue, leave it to auxiliary business Pixar to take what feels like actual pleasure in their work. The company’s new movie is Elio, an animated story of space and the underdog. A cynic might read its low profile as a sign of Disney’s inattention. They might even sense the id of the Pixar creative team in the tale of a seemingly unloved scamp who longs to start a new life, somewhere faraway.
The kid is Elio Solis, 11, orphaned, lonely and living with his aunt, a career-centric US Army major. Saddened with his lot on Earth, our hero grows obsessed with aliens, which eventually sees him zapped into the “Communiverse”, an intergalactic UN. But no sooner has Elio passed himself off as the leader of Earth than a snag arises: the threat of a militaristic “strong guy” with whom a deal must be brokered. (Perhaps there is still another reason why Disney might be releasing the movie quietly?)
Of course, every new Pixar film has to speak to an audience for whom movies are an ever smaller part of their life. (Elio himself is from what we might call the Skibidi Toilet generation, in honour of the scarily popular YouTube series.) In response, the film doesn’t waste anyone’s time, while tackling forever urgent childhood themes: the mysteries of other kids, older kids, adults, yourself.
Between all that and space, it is no surprise that Elio recalls the Spielbergian double act E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It isn’t a patch on those classics, but it nods to them the same way it does everything, with surprising subtlety, and welcome charm.
★★★★☆
In UK and US cinemas from June 20