This is a film that I really wanted to enjoy, and did for a while, but I just can't recommend it. Elio is filled with a lot of great moments, good humor, good visuals and designs, and obviously a lot of hard work went into it. But it's also just a mess, I'm not even sure where to begin. For one, it was obvious that this film needed another rewrite (or perhaps fewer). There's a little too much going on for the themes of the film, loneliness and belonging, to really take center stage. And this is besides the fact that I'm not even sure what the message of the film is supposed to be! Elio seems to go back on a lot of the things he was so passionate about even after getting everything he wants. And the little drama that does exist between Elio and his aunt is not explored enough to really make an emotional impact. Another thing that's really annoying me is the fact that there's nothing really original here. All the characters, settings, emotional beats, even the visuals! Everything has been done before. I mean this is Pixar, the film looks great and is entertaining, but it also looks like they didn't have enough computational power to render their visuals entirely. The film just looks that bland and tired, at least by Pixar standards. I guess that's true for the story and characters too. Pixar has really been on a down slope ever since Coco and I think I'm starting to see a pattern. I just couldn't imagine the current iteration of this company releasing something that doesn't have the stench of three dozen executives on it. Elio isn't terrible, but exactly what I expected.