Elio just wants to be Known

The movie Elio opens with an archived recording of the late Carl Sagan, who captured the minds of generations with the exploration of space, the galaxy, and the great unknown. Elio is trying to do the same. 

In the selected audio clip from an interview with Sagan, he is discussing the opportunities of discovery with the then newly launched Voyager 1, the now farthest spacecraft ever to travel. We listen to Sagan discuss one of the most piercing questions that concerns every person on earth, “are we alone?”

Elio, a 11 year old boy who lost his parents, is contemplating the same thing.  The opening scene has Elio finding a closed exhibit at the space museum of the voyager 1 that includes a mock of the golden record, a way to communicate with extraterrestrial life if the actual voyager ever comes across something during its expedition. After listening to the audio recording of the late writer and astronomer, Elio becomes determined and obsessed with making contact. A funny montage follows of him spending his days trying to be abducted by aliens, with no success.

Elio as a movie went through many different renditions during the filmmaking process. Some are controversial, with creatives and Pixar executives budding heads, and a storyline that was dramatically changed by the time of its release. The end result, however, feels like a Pixar movie that speaks to an idea that reaches everyone.  We are not meant to be alone. This concept is true for both a secular and Christian worldview. And not surprisingly, hope depends on it. 

For the Christian worldview, the question has been answered. However, even if the voyager were to report back and make contact with life outside earth, I’m not sure that the answer would completely be resolved for the secular view. Merely, the boundary line moved. Eventually we would be asking is there something more than the universe? I think people are already there, asking that question without contact with an extraterrestrial society.

The real question is “am I known?” For Elio, this is the emotional string to why he is searching. His life has been shaken with loss and the feelings of abandonment. Having attached his question to extraterrestrials, he’s attempting to resolve the idea: if he’s alone, then he is not known. As a child, Elio had his own special made up language that he and his parents knew. It was a special way he bonded with them. But with his parents gone, his made up language is nothing more than a nuisance to others. He feels not just misunderstood, but I’m wanted. His aunt who is now his legal guardian is doing the best she can in raising Elio, while managing her career in the military, and wrestling with her own feelings of being alone.

This review will not spoil how this story unfolds. Instead I want to focus on a line that is given near the end of the movie that acts as a sort of guiding principle. 

When you are unique, sometimes it feels like you’re alone. (Sometimes being a keyword)

This is true for many personal situations: the loss of loved ones, health issues, learning disabilities, and even identity issues. The need to search for community and finding shared interests, values, trials, and traits with others is essential to combating feelings of loneliness. 

However, I’d like to add a point to the principal…

Sometimes our focus on trying to make ourselves unique creates the loneliness we want to avoid. 

In Elio’s pursuit to answer this internal question, he fixates on his own means of answering it. So does any child.  In doing so, he alienates people and loved ones like his aunt that would remind him he’s not alone. However, our main question is” am I known?”. To answer that question takes time, trust and relationship. This is what our heart longs for the most. We already are not alone. No E.T. required. But we need time and trust to have a relationship get us there. 

While the movie does not touch on a personal God who created us, it does leave room for him to be part of our conversation as parents. From the first chapters of Genesis, God said it’s not good for man to be alone. What I always found most interesting about that comment, is that man was already in relationship with God when it was stated. Not to mention, it’s the Creator making the comment. Yet, Adam was feeling alone. How and Why?

It’s hard to quantify a relationship with a creator from the creation's viewpoint. Yet isn’t it interesting that we are fascinated with things that are greater and bigger, and beyond ourselves. This is because we were made to be in a relationship with one who is eternally beyond our own understanding. How can clay fully grasp the potter? 

For Adam to understand his relationship with God, his creator knew he needed an example of what it looked like to be in a relationship. And so God created Eve, who is unique to Adam yet of equal value. Fellowship with each other serves as a marker of personal and relational God. 

Uniqueness is not something we have to create, rather it is something that brings us into a relationship with each other. Fellowship with others reminds us that we have a relationship with our heavenly father through Jesus Christ. One of the most amazing gifts we get when we have a relationship with Jesus, is fellowship with the church. It’s not a ploy for membership. The church is formed of people and relationships that remind us we were not alone, but known. 

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

1 John 1:7

For Elio and every child that watches this movie, that is the hope we need to point them towards. That while they may feel alone, they have a God who knows them more deeply than they can ever fully grasp. Our presence in their life as parents, loved ones, and community can remind them of God’s great love for them, but investing in them can show them how personable their Heavenly Father is; how the potter's hands interact with his clay. 

But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.

Isaiah 64:8