Pixar trades soul-searching for star-seeking in its most whimsical — and least self-serious — original cartoon in over a decade.

Zoe Saldaña and Brad Garrett are among the voice cast for the animated feature about a young boy who, feeling out of place on Earth, dreams of getting abducted by aliens.

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).