Pixar’s latest has everything we love about Pixar, a heartwarming story with endless imagination, charm, and wisdom, about an endearing character and the fears and joys of being human. And yes, you will cry.

The title character is a young boy whose parents were killed in an accident, so he now lives with his Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña). She once dreamed of being an astronaut, but because of her responsibilities as Elio’s guardian she stays in her job tracking space debris for the military.

We first see Elio (Yonas Kibreab) hiding under the table in a restaurant, traumatized by the loss of his parents, with a worried Olga trying to adjust to a child she refers to as her “new roommate.” A few years later, he is in middle school, awkward and lonely. He does not pay much attention to his classmates because he feels unwanted by anyone. Elio is convinced that he can do better somewhere else, so he wants to get as far from Earth as possible. So, he offers himself up to be abducted by aliens, first “communicating” by writing a message on the beach, but then taking a classmate’s ham radio, which leads to a scuffle. Elio’s eye is damaged and he has to wear a patch for a few weeks while it heals.

Olga sends him to camp, where the kids he got into trouble try to scare him. Trying to escape them, he ends up getting transported to space, a sort of floating intergalactic UN, with the leaders of many galaxies meeting in a heavenly “Communi-verse,” with translation disks and temperature and gravity adjustments for every possible kind of living being, a liquid version of Alexa/Siri to provide support, and a computer containing all of the knowledge of the universe that looks like a constant Anaconda card shuffle.

Elio, who has always felt out of place, instantly feels at home, even though the group is not seeing him for who he really is; they think he is the leader of Earth.

This is where the fabulous imaginations of the Pixar artists really get to have fun, with a dazzling array of creatures from a sort of floating cross between an undersea ray and a butterfly and the elegant but warm-hearted voice of Jemeela Jalil, to something apparently made out of stone to a professorial-looking insect to an entity with a screen for a face and shifting blobs to express its feelings. They are a kind and loving group, committed to open-mindedness and tolerance. Tolerance does not mean tolerating the intolerant, however.

Keeping out the intolerant has its risks. The angry Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett, just scary enough) is a warlord who attacks other civilizations. He is so angry at not being made a member of the Communi-verse that he plans to attack them and their planets.

Elio befriends Lord Grigon’s larvae/tardigrade looking son, another young creature who feels different. His names is Glordon (Remy Edgerly, with one of the best kid voices ever, up there with Flower in “Bambi” and Linus in “A Charlie Brown Christmas”). They agree to pretend that Glordon has been taken hostage to get Lord Grigon to back down. And then they send clones of themselves back “home” so they can stay together with the Communi-verse.

The clone versions of the two friends (voiced by the same two actors) give the film a chance to show that it is not easy to fool the people who know us well, and that even those who get frustrated trying to understand us and may push us to be different prefer us to be ourselves.

Elio and Glordon, like, I suspect, many of Pixar’s fabulously creative people, do not fit into the world easily. While Elio devotes himself to getting abducted, he never considers making friends on Earth. He is thoughtless in grabbing the ham radio from the boy who wants to join a club that Elio just made up to get the equipment. He lies to the Communi-verse. He develops a conlang (constructed language) instead of trying to communicate with his aunt.

The film shows us that fitting in with and feeling appreciated by the Communi-verse helps Elio think about who and what he overlooked at home, including his own feelings. Unique can sometimes feel lonely until we understand that everyone, even those who seem to have boundless confidence and fit in easily, experiences moments of loneliness, imposter syndrome, and despair. But like Elio and Glordon, we can find those who appreciate us for who we are as we learn to appreciate the vast array of difference around us.

Parents should know that this film includes a child whose parents were killed and feels their loss very deeply. There is peril and there are references to violence and some mild schoolyard language.

Family discussion: How do Olga and Lord Grigon know that the clones are not Elio and Glordon? Why is it easier for Elio to make friends in space than on Earth? How is the ending of this film like the recent “Lilo & Stitch?” Maybe try communicating by ham radio.

If you like this, try: “Inside Out” and “Turning Red”