Luca

Enrico Casarosa’s 2021 animation sits on the Italian coast, where Luca lives underwater and takes human shape once he is dry. The director drew the story from his own childhood in Genoa and modelled Alberto on a real friend, Alberto Surace, to whom the film is dedicated and who voices a fisherman in the Italian dub. Its scale is the result of a deliberate shrinking. An earlier version climaxed with an enormous sea monster wrecking the town; Casarosa dropped it, saying the thing everyone felt strongly about was the relationship and that the story wanted to be smaller. What replaced it is a village triathlon, so the prize at the end of 95 minutes is a local trophy. The second choice runs the same way. Casarosa kept romance out on purpose, saying he was keen to talk about friendship before girlfriends or boyfriends arrive to complicate things. Every threat grows from one simple rule, that water turns them back, which is legible for small children but makes the suspense repeat. Rather than opening in cinemas it went to streaming on 18 June 2021 at no additional charge. Worth it if a village race instead of a monster fight is the right size of ending. Avoid it if you expect a summer friendship to turn into a love story.