The story begins on a military base and introduces us to Elio, an 11-year-old orphan boy, and his aunt Olga, a young officer who has put her career dreams to one side in order to care for her nephew.
Elio is lonely and feeling he has no place in the world. But, after stumbling into the space-exploration museum, and discovering an exhibit about a space probe launched in 1977 to send a message of peace to any life forms that may exist in outer space, Elio is transfixed.
He sets about on a mission to communicate with aliens, desperate to discover that he is not so alone.
When like-minded aliens from the Communiverse finally respond by beaming him up him and whisking him off into space, Elio is elated.
But he's been mistaken as not only as an adult, but as the leader of planet Earth. Keeping up the pretence, he bravely volunteers to go into tough negotiations with evil Lord Grigon, whose wounded ego has set his mind on destroying the Communiverse.
When Elio befriends the adorable Glordon, the story really gets underway.
A Pixar movie is always something to get excited about, but there was a moment early in this animation when things started to lag and I thought 'oh no, maybe it's not going to be as good as I'd hoped.'
It picked up pace and continued to gain momentum, but throughout, and for reasons I can't put my finger on, I couldn't help but feel aware of the mechanics of the storytelling. It was as if the curtain had been pulled back and I was watching the script being written, when I wanted to fully escape into the story.
Great effort was being made to elicit an emotional reaction from the audience, but it felt a little on the nose, which made it hard to allow myself to fully connect.
I attended the screening with my husband and our two sons, Odhran, 9, and Reuben, 7.
Lord Grigon is the kind of villain we love - nasty, but vulnerable and funny.
This is a movie about loneliness and finding your place in the world, but it's also about negotiation in relationships and understanding where other people are coming from.
Sometimes the 'enemy' may just be someone soft and vulnerable, hiding beneath a though exterior.
While we wouldn't say Elio is an out of this world movie, it is well crafted, sweet, and definitely worth a family trip to the cinema from its release on 20th June.