Sea monsters turn into boys, and a princess turns into a pumpkin.
I was really surprised and pleased to learn about the different films that inspired Pixar’s Luca, a captivating ode to childhood, friendship, and summer. Enrico Casarosa drew on such a wide variety of films, from Studio Ghibli to those of Federico Fellini in his full length directorial debut. He even borrowed from his 2011 short, “La Luna.” Despite Luca’s similarities to Ponyo (2008), Casarosa stated that he wasn’t thinking of that beloved story at all. In fact, the film that seems to have directly influenced Luca, in terms of structure and plot, is one from 1979 called Breaking Away.
But to me, Luca has a lot in common with the movie I love best, Roman Holiday.
On the surface, the only similarities are their Italian settings and Vespas. One is a coming of age tale about sea creatures with the ability to transform into humans on land. The other is about a princess who goes incognito as a regular girl for just a single day. But even in these brief descriptions is the theme of disguise. (And the threat of exposure is ever looming).
Both films aren’t typical fairy tales, though they’ve got the genre’s stock characters: princesses and magical creatures. In Roman Holiday, the princess is from an unnamed country, evoking the faraway lands in all the best stories that begin once upon a time. They’re set in the 1950s, with Casarosa describing Luca’s time period as “an aesthetic, beauty and a musical choice, and then a timelessness. When you go to an older era, it can feel a little more timeless.” Roman Holiday is absolutely timeless; it is very much of the time period, but not at all bound by it. The story unspools in one of the world’s ancient cities, and its grandeur is alive even in black and white.
Save a few plot details, Luca and Roman Holiday are essentially the same story with their dual themes of freedom and transformation.
Luca Paguro lives under the sea with his parents and grandmother. Immediately he reminded me of Ariel in The Little Mermaid; Luca wants to be where the people are. His mother Daniela forbids him from ever going to the surface. Like King Triton, she has a well founded fear of the “land monsters.” “They’re here to do murders!” It isn’t until Luca meets another young sea monster, Alberto Scorfano, that he actually ventures to the world above his own. Alberto literally yanks him out of the water.
Casarosa’s main goal was to depict the transformative power of friendship. The story is loosely based on his own childhood in Italy and his real life friend, Alberto. From Laughing Place:
“Alberto got me out of my comfort zone and pushed me off many cliffs, metaphorically…In fact, I might not be standing here if I hadn’t learned to chase my dreams from him. So that is the kind of friendship I wanted to talk about, those kinds of deep friendships, important friendships that make us grow up, change us, that make us find ourselves. That is at the heart of Luca.”
That kind of friendship isn’t at the heart of Roman Holiday, but change and self discovery are two of its key ideas as well.
Princess Ann is visiting Rome as part of a European goodwill tour. A newscaster praises her gracious demeanor, where no signs of strain are present in her serene and smiling face. But the strain does show later, when the rigid monotony of her royal obligations sends her into a tearful rage, or hysterics, as her lady in waiting calls it. Ann is not hysterical; she’s simply reached her breaking point. But princesses (and other girls and women) are not allowed to show such unflattering emotions. So Ann is given a sedative to make her relax for an upcoming press conference. The sedative puts her to sleep, but she’s already on the streets of Rome when it takes effect, far away from the embassy, ladies in waiting, schedules, and the expectations she’s dutifully met up to that point.
Luca also runs away to the surface after his parents announce they’re sending him to live with his uncle in the deepest, darkest part of the ocean. Daniela Paguro is determined to keep her son from all the dangers of the human world. Like Ann, Luca runs away purely on impulse. He’s too young to realize that his mother’s not entirely wrong, and Ann is too sheltered. She doesn’t even have any of her own money when she ventures outside the embassy’s gates. But running away was a necessary risk for them both. Daniela refuses to see Luca’s point of view, and it’s clear that Ann can’t reason with anyone in her circle.
The two boys have to avoid water to keep their identities a secret. Ann is armed with nothing but her regular clothes, the cover of nightfall, and maybe the flimsy hope that no one will recognize her.
Ann is so woozy from the effects of the sedative that she falls asleep on the street. Luckily Joe Bradley doesn’t recognize her, although he is a reporter who was going to attend the press conference. He’s so reluctant to have anything to do with this girl he mistakenly believes is drunk, but his decency wins out. Joe begrudgingly brings Ann to his apartment where they spend the night. The next morning, Joe realizes that the strange girl in his room is the princess.
So he concocts the perfect scheme — a newspaper story worth $5,000. A personal, exclusive interview with Princess Ann: “The private and secret longings of a princess.” “Love angle too, I suppose?” his editor snidely asks. “Practically all love angle.” (!) It turns out that Ann’s secret longings are quite simple. She actually did plan to return to the embassy after getting a haircut and eating gelato. But Joe convinces her to spend the whole day doing those things she’s always wanted but never could: sitting in a sidewalk cafe, looking in shop windows, walking in the rain.
Luca and Alberto decide they’ll hide out in the town of Portorosso, where Alberto is confident the Paguros won’t ever go looking for Luca. Now Luca will live the same carefree life as Alberto, without overbearing parents who won’t listen. The two of them will get a Vespa of their very own to travel the world, eat all of the pasta and gelato they want. Nothing at all fancy, just the simple delights of an endless summer for a pair of restless kids.
For all their childlike wonder and simplicity, there’s a current of melancholy in both films. Alberto’s brash exterior disguises the ache of his loneliness and bruised self worth after his father abandons him. There’s nothing quite so heavy in Joe’s background, but he doesn’t like his job and wants to go back home to New York. That $5,000 is his ticket home. But the story really did have a love angle. He can’t bring himself to publish it. Love wins over his cynicism; completely blots it out.
Back at Joe’s apartment, the air is tense with unsaid things. Their lies hang between them, but of course Ann doesn’t know that she never fooled him, not once. She suggests cooking something, but Joe doesn’t have a kitchen. He doesn’t ever eat home cooked meals, which prompts Ann to ask if he likes that.
“Life isn’t always what one likes, is it?”
That to me is the moment when she realizes that she has to return to the life she wanted to escape for just a few hours. Her days can’t always be filled with fun and excitement. This also mirrors Luca because the boys’ dream of living alone and seeing the world together on their Vespa doesn’t come true. Luca wasn’t meant to stay separated from his family forever. Unreasonable as Daniela was, she never came across as a tyrant. Like Ann, the boy just had to leave home for a little while.
Alberto was never meant to be alone either. He and Luca befriend a human girl named Giulia Marcovaldo, and her father Massimo (the true star of Luca in my opinion), rightfully takes the place of the one who abandoned Alberto. Like Joe, Alberto sacrifices something very dear — the Vespa he and Luca finally buy with their winnings from the Portorosso Cup. He sells the Vespa for a train ticket that will take Luca to Giulia’s school.
Luca’s dream of seeing the world beyond Portorosso is awakened by Giulia’s own passion for the stars.
Alberto experiences the pangs of jealousy when he sees how close Luca becomes to Giulia. He also sees his influence ebb away as Luca learns that he’s not the expert on human stuff as he once boasted. He doesn’t join Luca on the train voyage, in a farewell scene that reminded me of the ending to Summertime (1955), also set on the Italian Riviera. But he’s selfless enough to let Luca go and live out that dream of seeing the big universe.
Neither Luca nor Roman Holiday ends with the triumphant glow of happily ever after. People are always so unprepared for Roman Holiday’s bittersweet ending. How can that be the end of the fairy tale? The lovers part forever? The film does trade in the fairy tale’s all conquering romance for something much more real and sad. The real world intrudes on Luca too. But I like it. The endings are just right for these stories.
There are hints in Roman Holiday that Ann and Joe won’t remain together. At the ‘wall where wishes come true,’ Ann rather sadly remarks that it’s unlikely her wish will be granted.
“Then at midnight, I’ll turn into a pumpkin, and drive away in my glass slipper.”
“And that’ll be the end of the fairy tale.”
Every Cinderella has her midnight, after all. Ann really is Cinderella, even if she doesn’t marry the prince. When the clock strikes twelve, she has to leave him behind. Upon her return to the embassy, she reminds her country’s ambassador that she takes her duty to family and country very seriously. If she didn’t, she would never have returned.
Ann’s carefully composed exterior is restored, but it’s been strengthened by her newfound confidence and independence. She is transformed at the end of her holiday, same as Luca when he boards that train. The princess and the sea monster run away, only to find themselves when they come back.
And now we’ve come to the post credits:
Luca’s parents, incognito, come looking for him in Portorosso, same as the secret service of Ann’s country.
Emma Berman’s performance as Giulia is literally Oscar worthy. Not since Peter O’Toole’s Anton Ego in Ratatouille (2007)…!
I truly love the kids, but Massimo Marcovaldo really is the movie’s best character.
a piece I wrote about Luca’s hidden depth
still obsessed with Joanna’s post about the Ghibli references in Luca
Finally: Audrey Hepburn lived in Italy, loved pasta, and her half Italian son is also named Luca.