A coming of age story about accepting oneself against the backdrop of one Italian summer.
13-year-old Luca Paguro has the same hobbies as many Italian boys: eating ice cream and pasta, having fun with friends, and riding a Vespa. But there is a problem: Luca and his best mate Alberto are sea monsters who become humans only once their skin is completely dry. Their friendship is put to the test when the two heroes, along with their earthly and as yet unsuspecting friend Giulia, decide to compete in motor scooter races.
Luca is the feature-length debut of Enrico Casarosa, a veteran storyboard artist who has been making animation since Ice Age (2002) and has an Oscar nomination to his name for the short La Luna (2011). This is also the first Pixar movie, almost entirely created by the studio staff from home under COVID-19 restrictions.
Just like Coco (2017), dedicated to the Mexican Day of the Dead, Casarosa’s film continues Pixar’s commitment to celebrating world cultures. Luca is inspired by the filmmaker’s Italian childhood, the neorealist movies of Fellini, Rossellini, and Visconti, as well as by local myths and folklore. Another important source of inspiration is the vision of childhood and friendship in Hayao Miyazaki’s hand-drawn cartoons: the plot about kids from different worlds references Ponyo (2008), while the name of the fictional Italian town of Portorosso, where Luca is set, alludes to Miyazaki’s anti-war masterpiece Porco Rosso (1992).
Ennio Morricone, who died in 2020, was originally supposed to score the film, the soundtrack for which was eventually written by American composer Dan Romer, known for his work on another feature about growing up in the middle of the water, Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012). The cartoon also features fragments from Puccini and Rossini’s operas alongside classic Italian pop hits. The protagonists Luca and Alberto are voiced by young stars Jacob Tremblay (Room) and Jack Dylan Grazer (We Are Who We Are), with the supporting roles dubbed by the comedians Maya Rudolph (The Good Place) and Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat).
The film will be screened in English and Italian with Russian subtitles.
Luca
Dir. Enrico Casarosa
USA, 2021. 95 min. 6+