3 Short Paragraphs: Luca

 2021, Enrico Casarosa (La Luna) -- Disney

In 2011, Casarosa did an incredible bit of short animation called La Luna, about a boy joining the family business of cleaning up all the delicate little fallen stars on the Moon. Its such a sweet little thing, beautifully animated, with such an air of Italian. What does that mean? I am not quite sure, but it felt so Not American, as so much of this kind of animation does. Casarosa returns with a flick that is both again so very Italian but also very approachable for all, but again all about family.

The weirdest thing about it is that, at the core of the movie, it is about a merfolk kid named Luca who becomes dangerously curious about the surface world. And yet, the movie is not really about merfolk, just about being an outsider and finding how to be accepted. Luca meets another merboy Alberto, who has no family under the sea and lives near the 50s Italian village of Portorosso. Neither of them get humans very well, but are attracted to all the stuff. Humans have a lot of stuff. In a bid to gain enough money to buy a Vespa, they help out a village girl named Giulia who wants to win a bike race, especially against the town bully Ercole.

As expected, the movie is charming, sweet and beautifully animated. I found myself enthralled with bits and bobs of the movie, but overall, it was just ... nice. Very nice, but not astounding, like I found his short. There is something so safe and Disney about the movie, and aside from the once again not-very-American setting, it is told with few chances being taken.