Pixar takes a trip to the Italian coast in this breezy, charming sea-monster story.
A lot of movies can be described as fish-out-of-water stories, but few quite as literally as “Luca.” The title character, voiced by Jacob Tremblay, is an aquatic creature who lives with his family off the Mediterranean coast of Italy. The undersea equivalent of a shepherd, tending an amusing flock of sheeplike fish, Luca has a natural curiosity that is piqued by his mother’s warnings about the dangers that await on dry land.
Like many a Disney protagonist before him — Ariel, Nemo and Moana all come to mind — he defies parental authority in the name of adventure. (His mom and dad are voiced, in perfect sitcom disharmony, by Maya Rudolph and Jim Gaffigan.) According to the film’s fantastical version of marine biology, sea monsters turn human on terra firma, though their fins and gills re-emerge quickly on contact with water. Luca is a bit like a mermaid and a little like Pinocchio, a being with folkloric roots and a modern pop-culture-friendly personality.
On a rocky island near his home, he meets Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer), a fellow changeling and a wild, parentless Huck Finn to Luca’s more cautious Tom Sawyer. After a season of idyllic, reckless antics, mostly spent building scooters out of scraps and wrecking them in the surf, the friends make their way to a nearby Ligurian fishing village, where more serious peril — and more complicated fun — awaits.
“Luca” was directed by Enrico Casarosa, whose warm, whimsical aesthetic also infused “La Luna” (2012), his Oscar-nominated short. Unlike some other recent Pixar features, this one aims to be charming rather than mind-blowing. Instead of philosophical and cinematic ambition, there is a diverting, somewhat familiar story about friendship, loyalty and competition set against a picturesque animated backdrop.
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So not a masterpiece, in other words. But also not a pandering, obnoxious bit of throwaway family entertainment. The visual craft is lovely and subtle — the orange glow of Mediterranean sunsets; the narrow streets and craggy escarpments; the evocations of Italy and Italian movies. If you look closely, you’ll catch a glimpse of Marcello Mastroianni and Giulietta Masina. The friendship between Alberto and Luca, built around the fantasy of owning a Vespa and threatened by a desperate act of betrayal, carries a faint but detectable echo of “Shoeshine,” Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist fable about two Roman street urchins who dream of buying a horse.
That’s one of the saddest movies ever. “Luca” has a few notes of gentle melancholy, but it isn’t the kind of Pixar movie that will turn adult viewers into bawling, trembling wrecks. Luca and Alberto’s bond is complemented and complicated by Giulia (Emma Berman), a fellow misfit (though not a sea monster) who brings the boys home to her fisherman father (Marco Barricelli) and recruits them to become her teammates in the town’s annual triathlon. (The three legs of the contest are swimming, cycling and pasta eating. Viva l’Italia!)
Their nemesis is Ercole (Saverio Raimondo), a preening bully with two nasty sidekicks, who threatens Luca and Alberto with humiliation and, worse, exposure to the harpoons of the sea-monster-hating townsfolk. At the same time, Luca is increasingly drawn to Giulia and the human world she represents, which makes Alberto jealous.
But the movie is too busy with its many plots — and too enchanted by its summery, touristic mood — to linger over bad feelings or grim possibilities. It’s about the sometimes risky discovery of pleasure, and it’s a pleasure to discover.
Luca
Rated PG. Harpoons and hurt feelings. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. Watch on Disney+.
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