2021 Reviews – Luca

I’m rounding out my recent foray into Disney’s newest releases with Luca. This’ll be four Disney reviews in a row for me, and five out of six if we include Black Widow. Quality may vary, but there’s no doubt the studio which reigns supreme, as I can’t be the only one continually revisiting the house of mouse for entertainment. And here comes an early spoiler alert – Luca could very well be my pick of the bunch.

Along an Italian coast, the local townspeople believe in the legend of sea-monsters, with irregular sightings yet to be truly confirmed. But sea-monsters are definitely real – Luca is a simple young sea-monster himself, forbidden by his parents from making contact with the scary and deadly human world, and yet, coming across his fair share of gadgets-and-gizmos-a-plenty at the bottom of the sea, Luca’s fascination with the surface-world grows. He meets Alberto, an audacious sea-monster, who teaches him that by reaching the shoreline, sea-monsters transform to look like humans, and that those human inventions are pretty cool. Luca and Antonio hang out together and dream of a venture into town, where they hope to explore human culture out further by getting their hands on the best two-wheeled vehicle ever invented; a vesper. Luca’s parents may worry in his absence and may go looking for Luca, while Luca and Alberto struggle to hide their identity from the humans, and make new friends along the way.

Well, it took my brain a little while to get around the concept of ‘underwater farming’, where Luca works as a shepherd for his family, substituting fish in for sheep, but we don’t linger on that for long, before we are whisked away to better and brighter things. Luca is a dreamy story, unlike a classic epic or anything familiar, where you can kind’ve guess how it’s going to end as soon as it begins – I’m not sure if ‘refreshing’ is the right word, but it’s merely enjoyable to be able to sit back and let the movie take you along for the ride, so long as the ride measures up to something pleasant; not seeing trailers often helps with that too. I knew that the movie would probably get to an emotional crux eventually, and for all the movie’s frolicking around, where the main objective for our characters is literally as casual as wanting to ride a vesper for the most part, I was so surprised by how impactful this laconic narrative became. I mean basically, a lot of this movie is just two kids sneaking off to ride bikes; one of them, a scaredy little pale guy, and the other with more courage than sense. But this movie is lulling by being warm and pure, and when Luca eventually causes a riff in his newfound friendship at a crossroads, I didn’t see it coming. Alberto also forms an unlikely and understated bond with a gruff human named Massimo that I found really tender.

I really liked the movie’s character designs for a lot of the characters – Ercole Visconti is the closest thing to this movie’s antagonist; tall and lanky, he reminded me of Dick Dastardly in villainy, but also posh and Italian, without being cliché. Julia remains sweetly appealing despite maintaining atypical bushy red hair and a beanie. And Alberto has a little white scar on his arm, symbolising his head-first adventurous nature and a past case of resulting clumsiness; he certainly has mastered his Bruno. The design in all animation features is usually good, more often than not, but Luca seems exceptionally noteworthy, and I dug its subtlety. The summer-soaked and picturesque depiction of Italy is absolutely alluring – I consider myself very fortunate to have visited Venice myself, and this movie took me back; and with international travel near impossible at the moment, this movie might be as close as we get to an idyllic trip across the ocean for quite some time.

Sub-textually, I’m thinking Luca is like the thematic opposite to Downsizing, whereby seemingly disconnected choices along the way open up a world for Luca beyond what is previous imaginable; his ending and his beginning couldn’t be further apart, and there’s pause when you reflect on how far he’s come for the better. Luca and Alberto form a really tight bond, and I wonder if progressive conversations have got in my head, or if the movie is purposefully alluding to a homosexual interpretation of their young relationship – even beyond that, it’s true that, as sea-monsters, Luca is a story about two boys sharing a secret from people, where, whilst they look the same, they are different, until they are ultimately accepted and open to enjoy the possibilities afforded to the others. Whether Luca and Alberto’s friendship is intentionally ‘coded’ or not, I think this movie could certainly be cherished by young boys confused about their sexuality and provide a comfort to them, and I kind’ve hope it is.

Lastly, I have to mention a big part of my viewing experience with Luca was the shock I felt at seeing Maya Rudolph’s sea-monster character turn into a white woman – I want to go back to a time where I didn’t notice these things, or if I did, it was insignificant because people were considered more than just the colour of their skin, and the colour of their skin paled in comparison to the view of everyone for their individual value; but after the crackdown to ‘right the wrongs’ of other races voicing other races in animation, this is either a hypocritical example by Pixar or they are shirking the outrage, refusing to comply with putting people in superficial boundaries, and I like that.

And how?! How did Pixar get me teary-eyed this time? Let’s go back through the movie – fish-farming… right… then the two kids rode bikes… okay… then they ate some pasta and won a tournament; they had a great friendship and parted ways, but a lot of movies have friendships in them, and it’s not like Luca and Alberto will never see each other again. Ugh, usually I can tell how Pixar has tugged at my heartstrings, but I’m going to need help understanding my lizard-brain on this one. Actually, the lizard part of my brain is probably best suited to relating to the emotions of ‘sea monsters’, so perhaps I need a little help with the rest! Anyway, because Pixar is so skilled in its storytelling, Luca is no fluke-a, but it is another glorious example of a heart-warming and special tale from my favourite studio. Bellissimo!

4.0