Elio - 2025

This is a movie about neglected children. Sure, there’s a Rick-And-Morty-Flavored wacky space adventure, a comedy of errors surrounding a high-stakes diplomatic mission, and a throughline of light body horror. But ultimately, Elio is a kid who isn’t getting the care he needs from the world, and is punished for his loneliness and grief repeatedly. Fortunately for him, he is abducted by aliens, and meets another lonely kid who needs more from his elders. That that kid happens to be a 6-foot-long space larva, and that this works so well, makes this film pretty special.

There are the usual and expected emotional climaces, as lonely people get less lonely and frustrated adults learn how to take better care of the children in their care (one of these, which involved swaddling, was particularly devastating), but what really got me was another third act breakthrough, when the day is saved—not by all-powerful alien technology, but by a network of hobbyists from around the world. People connect and organize and help each other spontaneously, all the time, with no profit motive and with limited time and energy. Elio implores us to find our people, with whom we can make things and geek out about what gets us excited, and maybe then we won’t feel like we’re alone in the universe.