EAT • SLEEP • REVIEW • REPEAT
LUCA
Sun, sea monsters & simple Pixar pleasures.
When you’ve been in the game for as long as Pixar have, it’s almost inevitable that repetition would creep into things eventually. In the twenty-six years and twenty-four feature films that have got them to the very top of the animation game, Pixar have carved themselves a well-earned reputation for leaving audiences with a broken heart and one hell of an existential crisis.
Going way back to the notion of sentient toys that forms the studio’s very foundation, through tales of loss, love, mortality, and even infertility, the expectation that Pixar will rip your heart out and leave you weeping uncontrollably in the cinema aisle is all but a given these days. Yet, as universally lauded as this approach is, it ain’t half exhausting.
After all, for all their lofty ambitions, Pixar efforts are broad-ranging animations aimed at as wide an audience as possible. As such, constantly leaving your fans and customers pondering their very existence is likely to drag eventually, especially when your latest outing – Soul – represents the very pinnacle of this.
So, after years of loss and heartache, and when you’ve literally just been taken to the afterlife and back, it’s probably time to take a little break from it all and chill in the Mediterranean sun.
Preparing for an unforgettable summer filled with gelato, pasta, and endless scooter rides in the Riviera town of Portorosso, Luca (Jacob Tremblay) and newfound best friend Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer) are all set for the time of their life. However, while their adventures are just warming up, the pair’s fun is threatened by a deeply-held secret – they’re sea monsters from another world just below the water’s surface and very much unwelcome in these parts.
Pixar have never particularly shied away from their Studio Ghibli love. The legendary Japanese studio have been there or thereabouts in Pixar’s influences since their very inception, yet it’s never been more overt than now.
In the best way possible, Luca is the most Ghibli-like Pixar effort to date. Small in scope and brimming with a childlike sense of adventure, Luca takes its lead from Hayao Miyazaki, as it channels the spirit, wonder, and easy-going energy of My Neighbour Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Ponyo while feeling uniquely Pixar in its execution.
With a pared-down story and themes of inclusion and acceptance that even the youngest audience members will get, Luca succeeds precisely because of its simple ambitions and its desire to let us kick back and enjoy proceedings without too much emotional torment. Populated by lovable sea monsters, affable oddballs, moustachioed cats, and closeminded-yet-genial townsfolk, Luca is packed with easy-going charm, as director Enrico Casarosa constructs a tale of small-scale delights and lowkey wonders.
In this light, the stripped-down nature of the plot feels understandable, with the risk of Luca and Alberto’s identity being exposed acting as the film’s dramatic backbone, while their pursuit of a fabled Vespa adds just enough narrative thrust to keep things ticking over. The result certainly feels less expansive and a little shallower than your average Pixar outing, yet there’s more than enough in the story to keep things interesting.
Although the story and the plot are a little on the light side, what really makes the film swim is its character. With shades of Call Me by Your Name, a large helping of Miyazaki, a dash of The Little Mermaid, and more than a little Fellini about it, Luca is a delightful coming-of-age tale that hits all the right notes with its sweet, irrepressible story of friends learning valuable life lessons and enjoying their summer to its fullest.
Offering us the rarest of sites for a Pixar film – kids actually being kids – Luca makes the most of its simple charms, crafting a story of pure adolescent joy that does what it does and does it very well. Built around the adorable, boisterous friendship of Luca and Alberto (and, latterly, Giuliana), the film’s childlike energy and sense of hope is positively infectious, more than making up for its relative lack of emotional depth.
Complementing this magnificently, Luca’s animation is a thing of sun-drenched beauty. While never really hitting the kind of awe-inspiring heights we’ve seen from Pixar of the past, the film’s simplistic, carefree style is certainly easy on the eye and plays wonderfully well with the story’s more stripped back nature.
More importantly, the film’s animation, especially when paired with Dan Romer’s delightful score and the retro Italian soundtrack, fits its location like a glove. Whether it’s the sparkling Italian waters, quaintly ramshackle seaside houses, or the charming character designs, the animation on display brings this quaint little fishing village and Enrico Casarosa’s vision to life.
Inspired by Casarosa’s childhood growing up in Genoa, there’s a clear personal touch and an intimacy to Luca that you rarely find in mainstream animation, even with a studio like Pixar, and the result is something that will undoubtedly connect with audiences both young and old. Written with warmth, humour, and a huge dollop of empathy, the film may be slight in its approach but it’s undeniably huge in its compassion and personality.
Gentle and low stakes though it may be, Luca nonetheless bubbles with an infectious energy and an irresistible, Ghibli-tinged joy; proving that, after decades of heartache and existential ponderings, Pixar are just as impactful when chilling in the Mediterranean sun. Packed to the gills with charm, heart, and humour, Luca may lack the awe-inspiring creativity of its Pixar predecessors, yet more than lives up to its studio’s high standards with a beautifully animated, lovingly told fish-out-of-water-coming-of-age tale that will warm your heart like a big bowl of trenette al pesto.
