I came to Elio expecting a bright Pixar space adventure, but what held my attention was not only the alien spectacle. It was the sadness underneath Elio’s excitement. He is not just a child who likes planets, signals, stars, and strange lifeforms. He is a child who feels misplaced on Earth, as if the world around him has a language everyone else understands except him. That emotional starting point made the movie more interesting to me than a simple cosmic comedy would have been.