january utc eli is physically a boy with a boy's name who masquerades as a girl for his own purposes the film was based on the book and originally had flashbacks which explained the backstory but these were cut out as fans of the book would already know the truth about eli and it was apparently felt that new viewers didn't need to have everything spelled out for them eli is played by a girl but they even re dubbed the voice to make the character more masculine it wasn't intended that viewers individually interpret eli's gender