Luca (dir. Enrico Casarosa, 2021) — Review

Perhaps only a seasoned yet relatively unknown Pixar artist, with no feature directorial experience but a wealth of personal memories, could make a film about a pasta eating competition in 1950s Italy into a charming childhood reverie, rather than an exercise in eye-rolling. Luca lacks the emotional heft of some of Pixar’s earlier work, but nonetheless delivers a dreamy testament to the importance of nostalgia. Director Enrico Casarosa, a longtime story artist for the studio, drew inspiration both from his childhood in Genoa and the works of Federico Fellini and Hayao Miyazaki, creating a film which is, like its protagonist, an unlikely yet appealing hybrid; by turns evoking elements from The Shape of Water to Call Me By Your Name, Luca affectionately conveys the fleeting nature of youthful naiveté alongside the requisite mantra of self-acceptance.

Luca (Jacob Tremblay) is a young sea monster who shapeshifts between a low-budget Godzilla in his underwater form, and an Animal Crossing character in the human shape assumed on dry land. Resenting his bucolic existence as an aquatic shepherd boy, and inspired by a series of Finding Nemo-esque encounters with passing boats, Luca befriends adventurous runaway sea monster Alberto, living alone in a crumbling lighthouse. Soon, Luca and Alberto are blagging their way through life on land, instant converts to the film’s rosy depiction of the Italian-American way with its old-timey capitalist backbone: the purchase that promises the solve their woes is a shiny Vespa, representing freedom and escape from a life of oppression and fear of the ‘land monsters’. Naturally, they decide to attain this by participating in a swimming-cycling-pasta-eating triathlon alongside local misfit Giulia, AKA Spewlia for her tendency to chuck up in previous races.

Somehow, the cartoonish narrative and visual tone of Luca’s barrage of feel-good messaging and Italian stereotypes retains an authentic feel; every shot of a glistening gelato or saucer-eyed waif is imbued with an affection borne of personal experience. The warm, uncritical tone is reflected in the almost doll-like character design, which draws on a stylised, sunny combination of hand-drawn and stop-motion artwork, set amidst a background of radiant, slightly hazy backgrounds which lack the meticulously modeled detail of other big-budget animations like Frozen.

A supplementary adult voice cast manages to carry the lack of authentic Italian language in the film, particularly Maya Rudolph as Luca’s frazzled mom, and a scene-stealing cameo from the undisputed king of ridiculous accents, Sacha Baron Cohen, as his anglerfish uncle. For curious children, as well as adults deprived of their accustomed Italian holiday this summer, Luca provides a pleasant, undemanding glimpse into a simpler time and state of mind.