It doesn’t have that emotional kicker of an ending we might expect and hope for, it’s far too slight to evoke an ugly cry, but it’s breezily watchable, low stakes stuff, handsomely animated (on dry land, in water less so) and, like Disney’s spring adventure Raya and the Last Dragon, refreshingly free of romantic diversion, prioritising friendship and self-discovery over getting the boy, girl or sea monster. It’s string-pulling Pixar formula but done with just about enough effectiveness to work (do their films ever truly fail?). So the film works in charming bursts, as writers Jesse Andrews and Mike Jones explore the shifting nature of early friendship, of how extreme and all-consuming it can be but also fragile when taken out of its protected bubble and into the world. The world of Luca and its thematic potential are just so much more compelling than what ultimately ties it all together, a similar problem hampered parts of Up and Inside Out and more notably and consistently, Brave, thrilling, eccentric ideas that haven’t quite found plots that match them. The canny sea monster out of water set-up, and the intriguingly knotty dynamic it provides us with, teases much to be explored but the pair are lumbered with a rote tournament narrative instead as they must train and compete in a triathlon so they can win money to buy a Vespa (cue many a montage). There are of course many ways to view the film’s theme of otherness, whether it be through the lens of immigration or even race, the film fitting alongside other Pixar films that have tried to broach weightier topics with a light touch.īut it’s one of their lesser, frothier attempts in this regard, a sweet but rushed caper that commits a rather familiar Pixar sin: placing an interesting idea in the middle of a rather generic story. It’s hard not to watch the film without seeing something allegorical, though, its tale of misfits, straddling two worlds, figuring out who they are and how everyone sees them bearing a close similarity to many coming out narratives. But director Enrico Casarosa recently shot down such rumours, calling it a film about friendship with sexuality not part of the equation. The signs were there – an intense male connection, code-switching, a duality of worlds, struggling to be accepted for one’s true self, a Pride month release, the title which some saw as a nod to the director of the gay Italian summer romance Call Me by Your Name, fantastic hair. When the first trailer hit, it was assumed that, like its leads, Luca might also be hiding its true self, that it could actually be Disney’s first real queer animation, a major milestone for representation within a genre that’s only ever shown us extreme straightness (something that adds to the toxic belief that being gay is somehow R-rated and unsuitable for a broad family audience).
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