[Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers for “Elio“].
Pixar’s “Elio” is the latest reminder of how hard it is for original animation to succeed theatrically, especially with the kind of personal stories being made under Pete Docter’s leadership. The storytelling struggle was so difficult, in fact, that it prompted a course correction. First-time director Adrian Molina (“Coco”) departed his alien abduction comedy-adventure to rejoin Lee Unkrich on “Coco 2” as co-director once again. But he tapped “Coco” story artist Madeline Sharafian to succeed him, trusting her to complete his pet project.
Molina was in good hands: Sharafian deeply connected with “Elio’s” theme of loneliness and the search for belonging, and contributed some wonderful early concept drawings. She even stuck up for Molina during meetings with the Brain Trust when there was pushback.
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“I remember being in some of those later meetings with Adrian fighting for some of the scenes in the movie,” Sharafian told IndieWire. “One was that early scene where Elio watched the Golden Record Voyager leave Earth, and there were some voices in the room that didn’t think it was necessary. I could see Adrian’s face sort of stricken, and I was like, ‘No, you have to ease the audience into the movie. This is thematically relevant, it’s about Elio connecting with that [NASA] satellite in space.’”
Sharafian was soon joined by “Turning Red” director Domee Shi (they bonded during her stint as story artist on the movie). Spurred on by “WALL-E” director Andrew Stanton’s rallying cry to “make me care,” they resolved to strengthen Elio’s (Yonas Kibreab) motivation to escape his lonely existence on an Air Force base and find a new home with aliens who appreciate him. This meant turning his traditional alien abduction into a weird obsession.
“With Adrian, he had grown up as an artsy kid,” recalled producer Mary Alice Drumm (associate producer on “Coco”). “His dad was a military dentist, and he would talk about being this kid that didn’t fit in and feeling lonely. And I think Maddie and Domi both have that similar story and overlap a lot. They’re like a Venn Diagram of taste. And so I think the more we can ground ourselves in a personal connection with the character, the more it resonates,” Drumm said. “And then, honestly, with loneliness, the more we started talking to the crew about it, they really grabbed onto that idea. It really galvanized us. It became our North Star… a weird boy who learns to connect with aliens in outer space. That’s what we were tracking.”
The first important change was to raise the emotional stakes by making Elio an orphan with the death of his parents, turning his mom, Olga, into his stressed-out aunt (Oscar winner Zoe Saldaña, who replaced America Ferrera when she was no longer available).
“So that was heavy, but it was really necessary because it makes him feel truly alone at the beginning of the movie,” Sharafian said. “And we understand immediately why space is this escape for him, like this beacon of hope for this lonely boy. It’s the answer to all of his problems in that moment. And it was the right choice to not show the moment when he loses his parents, but the moment when he falls in love with space in the exhibit, as he’s lying down and listening to Kate Mulgrew’s voice wash over him and he’s connecting with Voyager.”
This enabled Sharafian, who specializes in insightful character intros, to create the funny and quirky montage of Elio pleading to get abducted, underscored by “Once in a Lifetime” by the Talking Heads. “It just lets the audience be on board with his wackiness and his insane mission to be abducted,” added Shi. “Like when he puts on the colander, and he’s listening to radio signals, and he’s ignoring other kids, and he’s fighting with his aunt. You know him more, you understand him more, and you’re a little bit more forgiving of his wackiness.”
This completely subverts the abduction scene, with Elio excitedly beaming up to the heavenly Communiverse interplanetary space station, instead of being afraid in the first teaser trailer (“No thanks”). This makes it even more of a blast for Elio pretending to be Earth’s leader.
“We were leaning into our love of sci-fi and horror, and it felt like a fun opportunity as well,” Shi continued. “Pixar movies make you laugh or they make you cry, but I feel like movies can make you thrilled or on the edge of your seat, or gasping, surprised, and I love getting those reactions out of audiences, too.”
One of the highlights is an “Alien” parody with the introduction of worm-like Glordon (Remy Edgerly), who appears scary at first but is just a lost and lonely kid like Elio. In fact, it was more effective having Elio bond with Glordon than with Glordon’s militaristic dad, Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett), as he did in the earlier version. Now, Grigon becomes an aggressive obstacle to Elio from the very beginning. He wears an armored shell that protects him emotionally as well as physically, and his distant relationship with Glordon mirrors Olga’s with Elio. The tender reconciliation between father and son was the result of a late rewrite by screenwriter Julia Cho.
There is also some fun horror subversion with Elio’s ever-pleasing clone, who replaces him on Earth. The scares turn funny during key plot points. This has the added effect of developing Olga’s arc to bring her closer to Elio. Olga immediately realizes this perfect Elio is a fake, and longs to be with her imperfect nephew. She gets her wish during a heartfelt reunion on the beach, which concludes with the removal of Elio’s eye patch: the result of a fight with bully Caleb (Jake Getman).
“It was always part of his design because I think it was something that made him feel insecure and othered on earth,” Sharafian said. “But when he’s in space, all of a sudden, this eye patch and the [green] cape make him look dashing like a space pirate, like a hero. It just helps add to the feeling for him that space is where he should be, and everything kind of works for him there.”
“But the payoff was new, she continued. “There were multiple spots where we thought, maybe they can take the eye patch off here, maybe there. We had it more as a joke. But what we realized was this moment of reuniting needed to be reworked because it wasn’t emotional enough. And then we realized what it really was about was these two characters who didn’t even know how to look at each other in Act 1. And having Olga peel off that eye patch, and finally, they’re seeing each other for the first time, and she realizes she knows him, and he finally feels wanted. It was such a delightful payoff.”
