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Elio: the most conservative, heterosexual, and self-censored Pixar is still Pixar (***)

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The obligation to reach everyone, the imperative to take risks but less, limits the scope and brilliance of a film as pleasant and charming as it is unambitious

A moment of Elio.
A moment of Elio.PIXAR

Elio is indeed a Pixar film. And it is because of its technical marvel, its ability to create spaces and universes from scratch with the privilege of novelty, surprise, and the slight (and surely subconscious) pleasure of amniotic flotation (let's call it that). But not only for that. Once again, the film is set on the line that separates two weightless, subtle, gentle, and of course, completely alien worlds (as it happened in Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., Coco, Soul, or Inside Out, the first and second installments); two universes, each on one side of the mirror, as the perfect metonymy of what animation itself means, always on the exact limit of the possibility of a dream. Whether it's the toys living oblivious to their owners' consciousness, or the dream creatures working exclusively at night, or the beings from the afterlife (the dead in Coco) or the beings from the present (the soul itself in Soul or the emotions in Inside Out) conditioning the conscious and living present of the protagonists, the grace of the Luxo lamp house has historically consisted of questioning reality itself. What we see is never exactly what is there.

Pixar's latest proposal signed by Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi, based on an original idea by Adrian Molina, insists on the same terms. Now with aliens. This opens up a world of possibilities, if not infinite, then galactic. The story of the 11-year-old boy in the title is that of a child who sees in the possibility of being abducted by aliens the gateway to a better, more pleasant place, as well as more plural, diverse, less exclusive, where words like strange or extraterrestrial, or even immigrant (why not) mean nothing. He is an orphan, living in solitude, his desire to reach the other side occupies every second of a life dazzled by a simple message from Carl Sagan. From here, the film unfolds before the viewer as a calculated mirage of good feelings, hypnotic spaces, and more or less unimaginable creatures. And with Glordon as a memorable character. Brilliant.

The problem, which exists, is the very thinly veiled effort not to offend anyone. Not even those who have made annoyance their way of being in and against the world. And that is no longer so much Pixar, or at least not the best Pixar. One of the directors, Domee Shi, had made a name for herself in Red for her uninhibited and provocative treatment of an argument as unprecedented and taboo as menstruation. We recently learned from The Hollywood Reporter that the original story conceived by Adrian Molina for the film in question was about a child represented in a "queer code" (this is the term the magazine uses to refer to the posters, tastes, and clothing style that were canceled in the final version of the film). And probably, it was his condition of being different in a world of proud and intolerant equals that made him travel (metaphorically and literally) beyond the stars to find all his equals who are precisely those who understand difference as another, much better and more polite way of being in the world, no matter which one.

The Elio that we finally see, the self-censored Elio after the openly gay original director was kindly dismissed, has little to do with the attitude so close to provocation as to risk that has defined the brightest part of Pixar. The current one is a male Elio without nuances or codes who embraces the regulations of the perfect global hetero-leader (that's why the Martians take him). It is clear that the times are not right; that the gas or orange agent, let's say, can do it all. And perhaps that is why now the personal drama of the character Elio is much more pious (and normative) as an orphan who has lost his parents and is forced to live with his aunt; an aunt who is not by chance a very respectable, very single, and very re-armed military woman.

But it is not only the argument or, rather, the modification that the argument has undergone that is impressive (and a bit scary, to be honest). The film's mechanics themselves appeal at all times to the most digestible and common mechanisms of melodrama in a very immodest and excessively orthodox display of the ordinary, by routine. There is an explicit and overly present desire to be a blockbuster at all times. Something that had always been foreign to Pixar, such as producing a film almost exclusively for children (perhaps only present in their less inspired works like Cars), occupies a good part of the footage. And it disheartens. It is disheartening to see how fear gains ground, how the most aggressively stale formulas (whether it's about being woke, cancel culture, or freedom as a commodity...) filter everything until they deactivate the best.

Although perhaps it is all just an exaggeration. In the end, and regardless of what could have been, what remains and what Elio is, is a surprising film in form, tender in attitude, charmingly kind... And it is liked, of course. Would it have been liked more in a different way? Yes, undoubtedly, but times are changing, and truth be told, they are somewhat frightening.

Director: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi. Screenplay: Julia Cho, Mark Hammer, Mike Jones. Story: Adrian Molina, Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Julia Cho. Music: Rob Simonsen.