Review 610: Luca

In many ways, Luca is Pixar's smallest film and yet one of its most charming and beautiful to look at.

Set in a beautiful seaside town on the Italian Riviera between the 50s and 60s, Luca Paguro (Jacob Tremblay) is a sea monster boy with the ability to assume form while on land who explores the town of Portorosso with his new best friend Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer) experiencing an unforgettable summer filled with gelato, pasta and endless scooter rides.

 

At the heart of Luca is a very simple story of Friendship; The one that develops between Luca and Alberto is the emotional core of the film. There's a certain innocence to that theme that runs throughout the film and keep light and poignant.

 

Together, Alberto and Giulia are the friends that teach Luca lessons, build his self-esteem, gives him a sense of belonging and helps him find himself

 

Influences of The Little Mermaid and Luca's big cousin from Pixar, Finding Nemo are prevelent throughout the film 

 

Director Enrico Casarosa's animation direction is   the score by Dan Romer is beautifully lush, the production design (recreating the Italian Riviera) is fabulous and alive with texture and detail, the scenery is breathtaking, the character design is  and richly detailed. 

The animation is gorgeous and the colours are rich with designs inspired by hand-drawn and stop motion animation works as well as Hayao Miyazaki's style to give the film a very unique and visually striking look compared to what we're used to from Pixar.

There are some very clever and charming visual gags peppered throughout the film such as Luca dreaming of Vespa Scooters shooting out fields like dolphins

 

Jacob Tremblay definately impressed playing the titular hero. When we first meet Luca, he’s acting as a underwater shepherd boy, hearding goatfish  One of the many joys of this film is seeing how Alberto’s influence rubs off on him and makes him a much more, bolder, confident and outgoing person as a result. 

 

Jack Dylan Grazer  playing Alberto Scorfano, 

Maya Rudolph and Jim Gaffian are also hilarious playing Daniela and Lorenzo, Luca's parents. They easily could've been one-note characters who just want to keep from away from the human world because the plot requires it. She's so focused on keeping Luca safe from the human world and making a life for him under the sea, that she doesn't stop to think about what he might want.

But over the course of the film, she's given her own mini arc where the more time she spends looking for Luca, the more she subconciously develops a taste for human culture and starts to reconsider her views.