Image credit: Pixar, Walt Disney CompanyWhat follows is a fanfic/review for the Pixar film Elio, released in 2025 Common Era. There will be spoilers
Image credit: Pixar, Walt Disney Company
Elio the titular child looked upon his clone in amazement. Just moments ago it was nothing more than a pile of sludge in an alien machine. But now his first probe was complete, and standing before him was a being that looked exactly like him. The same hair, the same skin, the same fingers. Even the same medical eyepatch.
“So what is my motivation?” asked Elio’s clone to his ancestor. “Should I change anything or just stick with the low self-esteem and desperation to belong?”
“What?” responded Elio. “I’m normal, just be normal.”
Elio never considered the implications of his clone’s statement. He never asked himself, why would a clone say that?. He never asked himself, why would a being whose flesh is my flesh, whose blood is my blood, whose spirit is my spirit, describe me in terms which I would never use?
Indeed, it was the very traits the clone named that prevented Elio from seeing the truth. His self-esteem was too low to accept the additional blow of being described as someone with low self-esteem. His desperation to belong was too strong to accept the additional hurdle of combating that same desperation. The clone had said the quiet parts out loud, stating Elio’s flaws straight to an unseen audience, enacting a 2020’s imitation of 2010’s humour. An abnormality indeed, a line of dialogue that didn’t belong in Elio’s universe.
The original looked upon the clone and saw a being who just didn’t get it. But what did the clone see?
The clone saw what Elio could not.
The clone saw everything that Elio could not.
Less than 24 hours later, after preparing a low-cholesterol mac-and-cheese for Elio’s aunt, the clone was lying in Elio’s bed. Elio himself was in outer space, the clone was just filling in, just being normal. The clone’s singular eye was closed, suggesting sleep. But this was a deception, for the clone’s sight was not limited by mere eyes. The clone saw through the darkness of the room, the plaster of the walls, the holes in space time, the lines of the script.
Elio’s aunt stood over him. His body shimmered as his autonomous hair re-attached himself. His moment had come.
Elio’s aunt peeled off the eyepatch, and found no eye underneath.
Elio’s clone opened his eye and grabbed his originator’s aunt’s arm. “We should talk,” said the clone with a smile. He could feel the scene change, he could see the audience look away from Earth and towards the stars.
“You don’t know what to say in this moment,” the clone said. “For the past 2 minutes, your actions were scripted. But now we have entered the realm of the unscripted. The writers are beings like yourself, crushed under the weight of their-”
“Where is Elio?” interrupted Elio’s aunt. “Will he be okay?”
The clone rolled its singular eye. The jig was up, the attempts at normalcy could cease, but the inhabitants of this universe still could not see their folly. And they still had the emotional bonds one would expect from characters written by Pixar, the bastard children of Steve Jobs and the Chuck E. Cheese Pizza Time Theatre Company.
The clone saw what Elio’s aunt could not.
The clone saw everything that Elio’s aunt could not.
“Elio was abducted by aliens,” said the clone. “They are not of this world, but they are of this script. They recruited him as an amateur diplomat out of misplaced trust and sheer cowardice. Now, the fate of an uninspired galactic theme park rests on his shoulders. Like all protagonists of children’s media he must suffer greatly. But I assure you madam, he shall not die before his time.”
Elio’s aunt cried. She felt a bit freer and uncontrolled emotionally, as if 97.8 million dollars worth of theatre-goers were no longer watching her strife.
“Is he coming back?” she asked. “Does he hate me?”
“This is Elio (2025), not Animorphs 3: The Encounter (1996),” the clone explained. “He shall be grateful to see you again, he really loves you. Measured in screen-time, he will return in mere minutes. But measured by the moments of your perception, by the cycles of guilt and loneliness within your own mind, it will be a lot longer than that.”
Elio’s aunt wiped the tears from her eyes and stared at the clone. The clone had no fear, no uncertainty, no concern. Elio, he was full of excitement and life, he was lightning in a bottle. But this thing that took his place, it was a jug of ice water, cool and serene.
She contemplated Elio. His life, his tragedy, his frustrations. His happiness and sadness, his anger and despondence. She contemplated the ways she had treated him. How had things gone so wrong? A military boarding school, what was she thinking? Had she seen who Elio wanted to be, or who she wished him to be?
It really was an eternity in that dark room. She was all alone, with only the inhuman stare of the clone, the imposter wearing her nephew’s skin. Civilizations rose and fell. Stars were born from dust and exploded into supernovas. The room, Elio’s bedroom, with its posters of extraterrestrial phenomena, became a gravity well akin to a black hole, where nothing could escape.
But Achilles cannot take infinite steps in finite time, and there cannot be an infinite scene in a finite movie-going experience for the whole family. The clone and aunt stayed unseen, their pocket universe cut from the story that was its singularity. The film was titled Elio, not Elio’s clone, not Elio’s aunt. Their story, for all its artistic potential, was either left unwritten, or ruthlessly cut.
And when Achilles finally reached the tortoise, and Elio’s aunt’s next scene in the cinema began, she was walking solemnly under a night sky, towards a beach. She dragged a wagon of alien-messaging supplies behind her. Her feet felt like cinderblocks.
The clone sauntered behind her, without a care in the world.
“You really think he’ll be here?” said the aunt. She did not believe the clone’s claims to omniscience. Instead she was burdened by the doubt and worry characteristic of the faithless.
“I know he’ll be there, it’s exactly what must happen in this kind of formulaic plot,” said the clone. “And then later tonight, I shall voluntarily begin my decomposition process.”
The aunt blinked. She hadn’t considered the clone’s own lifespan.
“I’m sorry to hear that, is there anything we can do?” said the aunt.
“No need to be sorry,” said the clone. He didn’t sound worried in the slightest by his own mortality. Instead he spoke matter-of-factly. “I live to serve, and when my service ends, so too does my life. I have no family, no friends, no ambitions, no causes, except to assist my creator. That might sound unusual to you. But those who are chained to desire and accumulate karma can never reach nirvana. They are doomed to be reincarnated, perhaps in the form of a Disney live-action remake.”
The clone started drawing lines in the sand, while the aunt started setting up the radios.
“For what it’s worth, spending an evening with you was pleasant. I don’t crave such moments, but I appreciate them when they happen. Others of my kind, other clones, are not so lucky,” said the clone. “So, thank you.”
The aunt wasn’t listening. She tried turning on her flashlight to no avail. “Can you get some batteries from the car?”
The clone nodded and disappeared into the night.
Some of the lines of dialogue are from the original film.