San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
‘Luca’ gives reassurance during uncertain times
Pixar uses power of tech to capture transformational power of friendship
There’s a recurring line in Pixar’s exuberant new summer release “Luca” — “Silenzio, Bruno!” — that’s sure to strike a chord with children who have ever experienced anxiety, not to mention adults who can relate to the discomfort of having anxious thoughts that keep them from embracing new experiences.
And in today’s world, which is emerging from a pandemic and rife with uncertainty, isn’t that just about all of us?
Members of the animated film’s creative team, all of whom live in Berkeley — director Enrico Casarosa, who based “Luca” on memories of his childhood on the Italian Riviera, and screenwriters Jesse Andrews and Mike Jones — agreed in separate video interviews with The Chronicle that a movie addressing kids’ unease, as well as the power of friendships to help quiet their fears, feels incredibly timely and, as Andrews put it, “resonant in this moment when kids have had to spend a lot of time away from each other, and yet need each other even more now.”
In an early scene in “Luca,” available to stream on Disney+, the movie’s sweet protagonist, a shy, naturally cautious 13yearold sea monster named Luca (voiced by awardwinning actor Jacob Tremblay of 2015’s “Room”), is hanging out with his new friend, Alberto ( Jack Dylan Grazer, 2019’s “Shazam!”). Unlike Luca, Alberto is a brash and extroverted daredevil. The teens bond over their obsession with Vespas and spend the day in Alberto’s hideout cobbling together a makeshift scooter from spare parts.
One catch: Rulefollowing Luca is too scared to ride their slapdash vehicle down a steep hill toward the sea.
“I know your problem,” Alberto says to his new friend. “You have a Bruno in your head. Don’t listen to him. Shut him up. Say, ‘Silenzio, Bruno!’ ”
“It took us a while to come up with that line because we were trying to find a simple way to get at what can be a complicated idea of needing to quiet the voice of doubt in your head,” said Andrews, who wrote the novel and acclaimed 2015 indie film “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.”
“How does a kid who’s cautious and afraid to take risks learn to boldly go out into the world when he has a voice in his head that’s constantly saying ‘Luca, no!’ ‘Luca, this is a terrible idea!’ ‘Luca, this is bad!’?”
“I think there is power in giving a name to something even when the name is random,” he said, echoing advice some child psychologists now urge kids with anxiety to do: name, and thereby tame, their mental nemesis, even with something silly like Mr. Scared — or Bruno.
“That line connected so quickly with all of us,” said Jones, a cowriter of last year’s Oscar winner “Soul.” “I was raised to not think about (fears), as if not naming them will make them go away. I felt later on how harmful that is, because it doesn’t give you the tools for dealing with the anxiety that’s going to continue to pop up throughout your life.”
Casarosa developed the “Luca” story line around his own childhood memories of being “a shy and quiet boy, pretty timid and sheltered” like Luca, the director shared, and having an adventurous, risktaking best friend who served as the inspiration for Alberto.
“He was a troublemaker, from a bit of a troubled family, and was rather free to do what he wanted,” explained Casarosa. His bravado “helped us both grow up, and made me think as an adult, ‘How do these great friendships stay inside us as we go out into the world on our own paths?’ ”
Casarosa admitted that creating a dynamic, entertaining comingofage film about a cautious introvert was “very tricky.” But he found the answer in sticking with what Pixar has always done best: “focusing on Luca’s imagination and showing what’s going on inside his head.”
Pixar films are celebrated for getting the pintsize particulars of childhood just right, including the rich internal landscapes where kids’ dreams and fears reside.
Oscar winner “Inside Out” (2015) famously took place primarily within the mind of an 11yearold girl whose emotions are constantly sparring for position in the driver’s seat. “Soul” plunged viewers into the philosophical deep end through a plotline involving a jazz musician who questions the meaning of life, death and the metaphysical
“Luca” (PG) available to stream on Disney+.
limbo that might exist in between.
In the vibrant universe of “Luca,” humans and sea monsters have feared and demonized each other for generations. Luca’s parents (voiced by Maya Rudolph and Jim Gaffigan) have warned him his whole life to stay safely underwater. (“We do not talk about, contemplate or go anywhere near the surface,” says Rudolph’s character, in a nod to helicopter parents everywhere.)
But the Italian “human town,” as Luca calls the picturesque fictional village of Portorosso — with its gelato, Vespas and sundrenched piazzas — fascinates Luca. When he meets Alberto, he learns that monsters like them transform into humans when on dry land. And when the boys make their first human friend, Giulia (played by San Francisco native Emma Berman), Luca discovers how transformative friendships between temperamental opposites can be.
“I love telling stories about outsiders who are experiencing something for the first time,” said Casarosa, who moved to the U.S. in the early 1990s to study animation and has been at Pixar since 2002.
He made his directorial debut with his wistful short film “La Luna,” which ran theatrically with “Brave” in 2012 and was nominated for an Academy Award, and pitched “Luca” as a feature in 2015. He started writing the story in 2016, and that same year he accompanied the production team to Italy, “which was really important to get a sense of the place and the culture,” he said.
“These are marathons, not sprints,” he said of developing the Pixar feature over several years, including through a pandemic that slowed down production.
“In Hollywood where I was a studio
screenwriter for a decade, I get 12 weeks to write a script,” said Jones. “At Pixar it’s three to four years. The difference is amazing. It’s a much, much more collaborative process.”
“I see simultaneously why Pixar’s batting average is so high, but also why no one else does it this way,” Andrews added, with a laugh. “It takes so much time and patience.”
“Luca” has a distinctly saturated, expressionistic look influenced by Casarosa’s love of Hayao Miyazaki’s animation (“Spirited Away,” “Ponyo” and “My Neighbor Totoro”) and his own nostalgic, painterly style. He said it’s an intentional departure from the photorealistic CGI effects favored by action films.
“If a superhero is going to destroy a building, you have to believe it’s real, but I wanted a daydreamy quality,” Casarosa said. “It was fun to bring that warmth to the computer.”
Even though animation software can now render water, for instance, with hyperrealistic detail, “sometimes less is more for me,” Casarosa said. “Instead of letting the computer generate 15,000 little droplets in a splash, I preferred to just design a beautiful wave ourselves. We were chasing something a little bit different.”