Luca

It was odd that but a few hours after publishing posts about the glory of Italian design and the way that the Anglo-American framing of masculinity is ruining lives, that we should watch a movie that directly celebrates the former and defies the latter so beautifully. Released to Disney+, I hadn’t really planned on watching it until I heard Ryan’s podcast with his guest: Ryan Michero, a lighting director on the film.

I was convinced to give “Luca” a go upon listening to Michero describe how dealing with Italian-sunlight-in-water was different than dealing with deep-sea-sunlight-in-water (when compared to his work on “Finding Dory”). For what it’s worth, all those considerations paid off, the water looks astounding. Additionally, the podcast reported that Sacha Baron Cohen (“Borat”) turned in a hilarious performance as Uncle Ugo (he did). I’ve been impressed by Cohen’s stretches against his provocateur personae, especially as a martinet with a surprisingly wounded and vulnerable side in “Hugo.” That “Ugo” is the Italian for “Hugo” wasn’t lost on me.

In any case, “Luca” is a sea creature (land-dwellers might well call him a “monster,” but this post will not) who lives with his parents and grandmother (ahem) under the sea in a sea-pastoral sort of world. While conditioned to fear the land-dwellers, occasionally their doodads, gizmos, and whatsits galore fall into his flock’s pasture, and he can’t help but want to be part of that world. Eventually, he encounters Alberto, an older sea-boy who dwells, without parents, in a dilapidated tower on a small island off the coast of Liguira, Italy. Alberto shows Luca that, on land, sea-folks’ bodies change to that of land-dwellers and that sea-folk can pass for land-dwellers (so long as they remains dry, in a “Splash”-esque Chekov’s gun). While there appears to be some taboo against doing “the change” and passing as land-dwelling, Alberto shows Luca that accepting “the change” leads to new wonderful experiences.

On the land, with the village of Portorosso, Pixar’s stand-in for Cinqueterre, looming in the background, the movie finds its (groan) footing and guides us to celebrate the beauty and magic of Italy as seen through the eyes of two best friends: records of O Mio Babbino Caro play, glossy ads of Vespas hang, and every boy dreams of looking in a side-view mirror and seeing that his reflection is the devastatingly handsome Marcello Mastroianni. Just as Luca is starting to find himself by accepting himself, his parents catch wise to his landlubber hooky-playing and enact a plan to pack him up and send him to the deep sea with Uncle Ugo. Mom asks Luca to look in her eyes as she drops this news: she would do anything to keep him safe from the looming threat of the land-monsters. Desperate and broken-hearted, Luca flees to Alberto and they identify the one place where they could hide that his parents’ fear would keep them visiting: Portorosso. By night the two steal into town and begin lives as land-dwellers.

Portorosso is beautifully rendered and recalls the sun-and-sea, baked seaside villages of Studio Ghibli (especially “Kiki’s Delivery Service”). The attention to how Italian sunlight is different than everywhere else shows just how deeply suffused into the film the love of that land is. Arriving at Portorosso, our duo encounters plucky Giulia, a land-based and purely metaphorical fish out of water, and her father (a local fisherman). The new-to-land boys also encounter a central-casting, big-sneer blowhard, villain-lite called Ercole who remains an (ahem) big fish in the small pond of Portorosso by winning the village’s annual “Italian Triathalon:” swim, bicycle, and eat pasta. Obviously the can-do pluck of Giulia has long been at odds with the know-your-place egotism of Ercole and, when thrust in the middle of the battle, you can guess whose side our new-to-town sea-folk take. The trio get up to hijinx galore in effort to train to take on Ercole in the triathalon. All the while, the boys get by passing for land-folk.

Meanwhile, Luca’s parents prove that parental love knows no fear as they go ashore to search for their son by spraying, water-ballooning, or seltzer-dousing every kid they come across. Maya Rudolph’s voice acting here is particularly gleeful with a shred of vengeful as she voices a middle-aged woman inflicting watery mayhem on small children.

It wouldn’t be Pixar without some moments of staggering heartbreak as well. A scene happens where Luca is given the choice to keep passing or deny some things about himself, his home, and his family and it’s…rough

Unsurprisingly, the movie ends happily, but the message is clear: we can be a lot of things — mer-person, a scientist, a land-dweller, a foolhardy Vespa fan, bookish — all at the same time, and we need never deny one part of our identities in order to be at peace with ourselves. It’s a fitting message in a time where so much of politics and life seems driven to binary choices, that “Luca” denies the singular either / or proposition.

“Luca” and Queerness

Of particular note is that “Luca” has been proposed as an allegory of opening up to one’s queerness. TL;DR I think it’s possible, but by no means exclusive.

An arc of “running away from the farm, meeting someone who tells you you’re loved and that your body is not a thing to fear, fleeing to the city together, discovering fabulous Italian design and handsome role icons like Mastroianni, and feeling sad because your parents’ prejudices are keeping them from this amazing world you’ve built and your amazing relationship” has got to hit home for a lot of queer viewers.

Heterosexual viewers also probably see queerness because of how poor many heterosexual men’s relationships with each other have become. Heterosexual marriage is assumed to be all-encompassing: the erotic as well as friendship. With it achieved, many men let all other relationships wither and die. That boys do and men could find an important level of support, care, and even love from each other without the erotic element is so strange to modern masculinity that straight-world views the situation as suspect.

So both straight and gay communities can agree, “Luca” might be a gay allegory.

However, the story is universal enough to apply to the fraught, energetic, and yes, hormonal time of adolescence — particularly boyhood — between 11-14 years of age in many ways. For some boys, that outsiderness has a queer dimension, for others it does not. For some, it’s about realizing home doesn’t fit you; for others not. For some, it’s about surviving bullying; for others, not. For some, it’s about letting go of racial conformance to the dominant population; for others, it is not. It is the beauty of the film that it can resonate in some ways for some, and others for others.

Masculinity

So while I didn’t resonate with a queer contextualization of the film, I did harmonize with the idea that boy/boy relationships, that train us on how to be men in relationships, be a friend, and be strong forces within our community are good, special, and beautiful.

If you’ve never had your heart broken when your friend moved away or changed to follow a different path than you — a friend with whom you could talk of childish things (video games, toys, silly swimming pool games), mature things (the death of a grandparent or a childhood dog), and hormonally-driven things (like being so hot for the girl in Geometry that you can’t remember having learned anything for the last week) — then your life missed something powerful and real. Even when it ends in heartbreak or parting of ways, confusion, or sorrow, these adolescent relationships are one of the best pains of life: a reminder that you were real and known and maybe even loved.

“Luca” suggests that boy/boy friendship, and even love, is a vital part of living well, and it’s for this point that “Luca” might well be important: it’s a widely-available, family-friendly movie that says: boy/boy relationships are good, important, and sustaining, they should be preserved into manhood. By celebrating the good in men and the goodness they can have together instead of emphasizing the bonding element of femininity-hating, “Luca” proposes, subtly, a better and more fulfilling path of life than dominance-based masculinity.

All told, it’s stunning visuals and timely message make “Luca” a film worth seeing.

• Italy
• Animation
• Pixar