Luca

 In an earlier post I published in March, I complained about a set of recent popular films that I thought suffered from the same generic flaw: a lack of objective correlatives. The films' characters went through familiar arcs: they began with a flawed belief about themselves or the world; they eventually realized why they were wrong (the "discovery" of classical drama, to borrow a term from Northrop Frye); and they emerged with a new and sounder worldview. But the characters accomplished these alterations largely through a set of literal-minded conversations about the changes they were undergoing. 

We knew that they had a flawed belief, that is, because they described it to us. We knew that they had realized why they were wrong because they told us about it, or sang a song about it, with a chorus that went something like: "I just realized...." We knew that they had a new worldview that would inform their actions going forward because they said so. Meanwhile, nothing really happened to them in the story, and they didn't really do anything, that would justify or explain these transformations. The changes and storms taking place in the characters' emotional lives did not correspond to any outward narrative events: they lacked, in short, the "objective correlatives" that T.S. Eliot called for in a famous critical essay. 

Well, I'm here to tell you that I stand by my critique, and I point to the 2021 Pixar Animation Studios film Luca to show that it doesn't have to be this way. Here is a children's movie that passes the Eliot test! The movie (which I eventually saw—two years after its release—because we put it on for my nephew, and ending up enjoying it ourselves) has as many interesting and relatable themes as Encanto or the other films I was critiquing in the previous post. But it gets at these themes not only through having characters talk about them, but also by doing things, and undergoing external events, that explain why these themes became relevant for them, why their preexisting worldviews were challenged, and why they became inclined to adopt new viewpoints. 

The film is nominally about sea monsters who possess the ability to transform into humans and "pass" for members of land-bound society, when they emerge from the water. Because humans have historically hunted the sea monsters to death, however, the prospect of emerging onto land is hedged round among the sea monsters with superstitious dread and parental prohibitions. Luca, a young sea monster, is not permitted to break the waves and try on his human form. Yet, the temptation to explore this alternative world is overpowering. So he disobeys his parents and makes friends on land. Adventure ensues. And all of this is set, charmingly, in a postwar Italian coastal town evocative of the masterworks of Italian Neorealism, with Federico Fellini movie posters in the background. 

There are a variety of resonant themes going on here: the movie is obviously about developing autonomy, growing up, taking risks, escaping from the repressions and inhibitions of one's upbringing in order to experience a wider reality (D.H. Lawrence's advice "Don't be a good little, good little boy/being as good as you can," might serve as a paraphrase of one lesson Luca learns.) Does the "sea monster" conceit also represent something else? It could be seen as a metaphor for queerness or gender nonconformity (when Luca and Alberto reveal their sea monster identities in the film's conclusion, and start to live openly, two old ladies in the town suddenly unveil that they are sea monsters too, suggesting that there were sea monsters living "in the closet" among the townsfolk all the time).

In short, it has all the usual Disney/Pixar themes: there is nothing wholly original about the film in that regard. It recapitulates, as so many of these movies do, the same thematic journey from self-doubt to self-actualization, from childhood dependence on one's parents' decisions to adult agency to stand on one's own feet. (And these are, by the way, not themes unique to Disney or to a streak of modern expressive individualism embodied in twentieth century American culture, as some critics might imagine. In many ways—reaching further back—these are nothing but the classic themes of drama in general. As Northrop Frye catalogues in detail, there is often in drama a "blocking" parent who inhibits the autonomy of the protagonist, and who eventually must realize they were wrong to stand in the way of the protagonist's desires. In a comedy with a happy ending—like Luca—the parents arrive at this realization in time to reconcile with the hero; as the parents do here, after they see him win the race.)

Why, then, does this film work better than some others? I think it is because of the objective correlatives. And I don't just mean that there are little "symbolic" touches in the film that relate to the theme (though there are these: one of the Italian songs heard from the phonograph in Alberto's tower is a famous aria that features a soprano pleading with a rigid parent to rescind his objections to her marriage; which is relevant of course to Luca's plight and serves as a fitting siren song to tempt him from the waves into a world of parental disobedience). 

By objective correlatives, I mean (and Eliot meant) something more fundamental than having objects that speak to the story's themes: rather, I mean that the events of the story should be what propels the plot's thematic revelations. Here, I think the film succeeds where others have failed. 

Take the example of Luca's and Alberto's falling out and subsequent reconciliation. Here, a few key beats in the story are accomplished through conversation: but it is not words alone that persuade. Luca's initial betrayal that causes their rupture—his choice to side with the humans and reject Alberto as a sea monster, while denying his own identity—is a deed with consequences. When the pair ultimately reconcile, it is not only because Luca realizes he was in the wrong (the "discovery"), but also because he acts upon this discovery and the amended worldview it has disclosed in a way that makes it up to his friend. He takes risks and makes sacrifices to live openly as the sea monster he is, and to protect Alberto. 

Screenwriters should heed this lesson. It should prompt them to resist the urge, the next time they reach this point in the script to have one character say: "I'm sorry, I realized I was wrong," and have the other characters say, "Okay, I accept your apology," and leave it at that. Such interchanges might happen every day among people who are not characters in a film. But they do not make for exciting storytelling.