Luca review: Pixar's fish-out-of-water tale is a quaintly charming summertime adventure
The new film from the beloved animation studio transports viewers to a delightful little corner of Italian Paradise.
In recent years, Pixar movies have tackled some pretty deep subjects. Coco, for example, superbly dealt with the issue of bereavement from a child’s perspective, while last year’s Soul essentially served as a treatise on the nature of life and death.
Luca, the latest film from the beloved animation studio, is a rather more quaint affair. The film chronicles a summertime friendship between two sea monsters living on the Italian Riviera in the 1950s, as they embark on a daring mission to get their hands on the greatest of all possible prizes: a Vespa. But don’t let that smaller scale fool you into thinking this is any less vital an entry into the Pixar canon – this is a delightfully charming summertime adventure full of wonder and joy, transporting viewers to a little corner of Italian Paradise and telling a sweet story of burgeoning friendship.
At the start of the film, we are introduced to Luca Paguro, a sea monster who has never gone above the surface, and is largely forbidden from doing so by his strict parents. But following a chance encounter with the rebellious Alberto, Luca finds himself captivated by all the joys to be found beyond the sea, from the singing lady machine (a gramophone), to the delicious taste of ice cream to the promise of further knowledge about the ways of the world. Eventually, he and Alberto meet Giulia, a girl from nearby Genoa who dreams of beating local sleaze Ercole in the famed Portorosso Cup (a race involving swimming, cycling, and competitive pasta eating) and the trio form an alliance in order to achieve their shared goals.
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The film is the brainchild of Italian director Enrico Casarosa, who has previously worked as a storyboard artist on a host of animated classics including Ice Age and Up, and who was nominated for an Oscar for his debut short film La Luna. In creating the fictional town of Portorosso, where much of Luca is set, Casarosa has said he was inspired by many of the towns he remembers visiting in his youth, and his passion and love for those locations absolutely shines through.
There are so many little details – from the nods to classic neorealist films to the references to Italian folklore to the gaggles of elderly women gossiping on street corners – that make Portorosso feel at once fantastical but also like a real, lived-in place, lending the whole film the sort of genuinely personal touch that is so often missing from big studio films.
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In some ways, the film feels more like the product of Studio Ghibli than it does of Pixar (the similarities between Portorosso and Porco Rosso cannot be an accident), both with regards to the gentleness of the narrative but also in terms of the filmmaking itself. Luca is largely a departure from the sort of animation style we’re used to seeing in Pixar movies, swapping photorealism for something more stylised, cartoonish, and lyrical – the "postcard as opposed to the photograph" as producer Andrea Warren put it to RadioTimes.com.
There are a number of brilliant slapstick scenes – Luca learning to walk, Alberto wolfing down pasta, the pair of them trying to ride a homemade Vespa with near-disastrous consequences – that are a real treat, as well as some visually inventive dream sequences, including one involving flying Vespas and another where Luca travels from the rings of Saturn to the Colosseum. The film also shines in almost all of its technical elements – the score from Dan Romer is terrific, the voice performances from the Luca cast (including Jacob Tremblay, Jack Dylan Grazer and newcomer Emma Berman) are warm and enthusiastic and the character design is superb.
But perhaps the best praise I can give Luca is that it struck me as the kind of film I would want to watch over and over again as a child. The film strikes a wonderful balance between humour, imagination and peril (Luca and Alberto will be exposed as sea monsters if they ever come into contact with water), which added to the beautifully realised setting, the allure of summertime adventure and the insightful exploration into childhood friendships make it something that will be sure to instil a sense of awe in younger audiences. (I can easily imagine Alberto’s catchphrase, “Silencio Bruno” uttered in playgrounds around the world.)
That’s not to say it won’t work for adults as well – there’s a sort of beautiful nostalgia to the film, and the aforementioned animation style will give older viewers plenty to marvel at. But first and foremost it seems like a film that could easily become an absolute favourite for kids, and that is certainly not something to be sniffed at.
Luca arrives on Disney Plus on Friday 18th June. You can sign up to Disney Plus for £7.99 a month or £79.90 a year now. Looking for something else to watch on Disney Plus? Check out our best Disney Plus movies guide or best Disney Plus series guide. For what’s on TV tonight check out our TV Guide.
