Pixar is known for one of many things: emotional storytelling. It’s something that permeates practically every movie, and what makes their movies so consistently great. And they’ve only gone and done it again.
Luca is one of those movies, like quite a few Pixar movies recently (like Onward), that is sneakily good. What I mean by that is Luca wasn’t a movie I was especially looking forward to seeing in my Pixar watchthrough. But when I did watch it, I was almost ambushed by the different levels (literally) of beauty that exists in this movie.
First off, as is standard in Pixar movies by now, the animation is magnificent. Pixar has made movies with a heavy focus on water before, and that expertise showed. The underwater scenes were stunning, the lighting, everything about the water animation was truly spectacular. Then when you go above the water, the world that they created is so fricking beautiful. The beaches, the rocks, the streets of Portorosso. Everything is a feast for the eyes. Luca’s “daydream” sequences are just as magnificent. The vibrancy of the colors, the way it cuts from real life to the daydreams. And they do more than just look cool. The daydream animations help to draw the viewer into the mind of an excited, and incredibly imaginative boy. He sees the stars as anchovies because Alberto told him they were. He can see all the things that Giulia tells him, we get to see what he sees, and this only binds us closer to him.
Second, the story. Now, in terms of grand plans, it’s not really much. It’s actually a very simple story. Two boys from out of town team up with a girl to win a local race. But this simplicity allows the story to take on multiple forms. It follows what I call “the Pixar formula”, and this allows for multiple stories to be told on the same canvas. Of course, a lot of these stories will be ones that the audience can “see” as they watch the movie. They could see a story of people just trying to be accepted in a place, or a boy willing to do anything for freedom, or a story of a beautiful friendship, or dealing with and processing trauma. All these exist, nested in a simple and, in its own way, very beautiful tale of a group of underdogs trying to win a race.
Third, the characters. A lot of the nested story is only possible because of the richness and variety of the characters that the filmmakers created. Luca is a boy in a strange place. Out of his home for the first time, he makes new friends and discovers parts of himself that he never even knew existed. He goes from a timid fish/boy at the start, to a person that would do anything for his friends. Even if it means risking his life. Alberto is a boy who would do anything besides feel the pain he’s had to endure. He puts on perhaps the best denial act I’ve ever seen on screen. His façade is almost uncrackable, until it shatters, and he has to learn that pretending the pain doesn’t exist doesn’t make it go away. Giulia (my personal fav) is a simple girl. She just wants to win the Portorosso Cup to shut her rival/bully up once and for all. She is the “glue” that holds their friendship together. Even the supporting characters like Massimo, Luca’s parents, and Ercole (I know he’s the antagonist), are all brilliantly written and all serve their “purpose”.
There’s so many other great things about the movie, from Massimo’s personality flip (let’s be real, we all expected a burly, overly serious father), to the little things like how he lost his hand, Alberto “imprinting” on him (I’m a sucker for replacement parent stories), the classic Pixar plethora of easter eggs, and so much more (I love the “what happens after” art during the end credits).
Luca is yet another addition to a very long list of excellent Pixar outings, using what they know and what they are good at to pull at the emotional center of everyone.
