I Went Into Elio Expecting A Space Adventure, But I Didn't Know I Would Be Getting A Movie That Perfectly Defines Parenthood

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains some minor spoilers for Elio. If you haven’t watched the new Pixar movie, please go back to Earth and come back after checking it out.

I’m going to be completely honest. Going into Elio, I thought my kids and I would spend a couple of hours watching an epic space adventure about a young boy with a cool eye patch finding his place in the universe. And while that’s very much the case for the new 2025 movie, the latest Pixar release is also a highly emotional and enchanting story that perfectly defines parenthood.

The good, the bad, and the ugly of raising a kid (both human and alien) are all in this movie, and are woven together to create an experience that captures the very essence of being a parent better than just about anything I’ve seen all year.

At Its Core, Elio Is A Movie About Parenting

When I heard about the emotional experience a colleague had watching the first 25 minutes of Elio back in May, I had a feeling this movie was going to wreck me. Though the idea of a boy trying to navigate a world (and galaxy) following the death of his parents is pretty much a storytelling staple for Disney, how the whole idea of parenting was approached in this movie worked really well.

At its core, Elio is a movie about parenting, and that’s seen through the stories of two supporting yet crucial characters: Elio’s aunt and guardian, Olga Solis (Zoe Saldana), and Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett), the father of the alien the titular young hero befriends in the movie. These two characters don’t have it all figured out, take out their own frustrations on their children, and tend to make matters worse for everyone, but they are TRYING

The 'I May Not Understand You, But I Love You' Line Cut Right To The Heart

Near the end of Elio, when Lord Grigon confronts his son, Glordon (Remy Edgerly), the powerful warlord in a suit of armor tells the young alien boy that even though they are completely different and don’t see eye-to-eye on much, he’s still his father and he still loves him. The line basically goes: “I may not understand you, but I love you.”

Let me tell you, I had one daughter in the chair to the right of me, my younger daughter was to the left of me, and my son was sitting on my lap (he didn’t like his seat) when this scene went down, and it cut right to the heart. That small line carried so much weight, and perfectly summed up the unconditional love that comes with parenthood.

Even Elio's Space Adventure Elements Are Emotional

As pointed out in CinemaBlend’s Elio review, the movie is incredibly imaginative with a ton of great space adventure elements. One thing I didn’t expect going into the movie was that these elements would be so dang emotional. I mean, as someone who grew up obsessed with Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series and the Voyager satellites, there were parts of the movie that sent me off on a wave of nostalgia and emotion.

It’s not quite a biopic of the late astrophysicist we were promised a decade ago, but this movie takes Sagan’s love of space travel and exploration in general and applies it to a family-friendly movie. Watching a young Elio be transformed by his introduction to science and outer space is pretty, pretty cool.

The best thing about all of this, though, was talking to my kids on the way home about the Voyager satellites, the Golden Record, and about stumbling upon Carl Sagan as a kid. This is what parenting is about.