Elio is a lonely 11-year-old just looking for big answers about life. It’s a solid premise that, viewed one way, has all the makings of a classic Pixar film. Glordon (Remy Edgerly) is the toothy, slug-like young alien with no eyes who befriends Elio (Yonas Kibreab).

Directed with vigor and dashes of humor and emotion by Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi (“Turning Red”) and Adrian Molina (co-director of “Coco”), “Elio” is laden with Easter eggs and has a killer end-credit bonus scene and pays snappy homage to numerous sci-fi films (“Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” amongst others).

It’s pretty obvious that the original intention was to celebrate the outsider and make a point about finding one’s tribe, but somewhere along the line that all got lost, and we’re left with spectacular film about the vastness of infinity that ends up an Earthbound parable about family ties.