Film offers most pure and condensed enchantments In Pixar’s ‘Luca,’ young life as a stolen adventure By Jake Coyle monster, Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer), compel Luca to swim up to a It’s the late 1950s. beach and stride ashore. He watches Alberto do it fi rst. When Luca gets They quickly recognize an unexpected danger. Portorosso is adorned brisk and bright sun-dappled fable of above-ground adventure and up the nerve, the transformation is immediate. Fin turns to foot. Tail with pictures of slayed and slaughtered sea monsters. The whole town A below-the-surface identity, Enrico Casarosa’s “Luca” — a sum- disappears. And a very sea-legged boy steps forward, swiftly falling on lives in fear of them - a concern mirrored by Luca’s family who quake mery, shimmering fish-out-of-water fairy tale — is one of Pixar’s most his face and fl opping on the ground like a fi sh. at the thought of “land monsters.” Revealing their true natures would pure and condensed enchantments. Walking comes quickly enough, though, and through Luca’s eyes be suicidal, and all it takes is a water balloon or a bit of rain to ruin their Pixar has plunged into the sea before, of course, in the aquatic “Find- we see the wonders of surface-dwelling anew - the blue sky, the human disguises. Still, that doesn’t stop Luca and Alberto from enter- ing Nemo” and “Finding Dory.” Lushly detailed waters have been swaying trees, the rustling grass. Luca and Alberto (who already ing a triathlon with the hope of winning a Vespa, or from befriending a sprinkled through many of the studio’s fi lms, from the rushing river has a fort with collected treasures) rush to frolic in all the fun of village girl, Giuilia (Emma Berman), with a fearsome fi sherman father of “The Good Dinosaur” to the frothy seaside surf of “Piper.” One being human. Luca, feeling guilty, keeps saying he’s about to rush (Marco Barricelli). personal favorite: how, after the frantic Paris chase in “Ratatouille,” the home. But he can’t help himself. In “Luca,” young life is a stolen It would be easy to label “Luca,” which arrives Friday on Disney+, diminutive Chef Skinner bobs furiously in the Seine. adventure. “minor Pixar.” Its visuals, while beguiling, don’t push new digital But in “Luca,” we’re in the ocean to look longingly upon another ground the way many Pixar animations have. There isn’t an existential Film world, which happens to be our own. Luca Paguro (Jacob Tremblay) is Invention journey into the mind, beyond the grave or into the heavens. It’s a cou- a 13-year-old sea monster who lives off the coast of the Italian Riviera. They don’t have everything quite fi gured out. Alberto, more con- ple of kids coming of age over a sun-kissed summer. He’s a farm boy, like many protagonists before him, with dreams of fi dent and reckless than Luca, calls a phonograph a “magic singing But I think the modesty of “Luca” is part of what makes it great. As another, forbidden realm — only Luca shepherds goatfi sh, instead of lady machine” and believes the stars in the night sky are little glittering much as Pixar’s recent output (“Soul,” “Onward,” “Coco”) has been goats, on rolling underwater pastures. To him, the surface is a magical, anchovies. But they are absolutely certain of one thing: the Vespa is the daringly conceptual, it has sometimes felt as though the studio and unknowable place that he’s only heard rumors of from his grandmoth- single greatest human invention. That draws them to the nearby town its artists are too focused on charting new narrative territory. “Luca,” er (Sandy Martin), who’s quickly shushed by his protective parents of Portorosso (the name seems a nod to the great and most European Pixar’s shortest feature since its fi rst (“Toy Story”), is modest, straight- (Maya Rudolph, Jim Gaffi gan). of the Studio Ghibli canon, “Porco Rosso”), a quintessential Italian forward and classical. It feels like Pixar’s page out of Italo Calvino’s But curiosity and the urgings of another, more land-accustomed sea hamlet with a village fountain and a “La Strada” poster on the wall. “Italian Folktales.” (AP) Variety s e r u t a This image released by Netflix shows Kevin Hart, (left), and Alfre Woodard in a scene from ‘Fatherhood.’ (AP) e Film Diesel says ‘Fast and Furious’ saga planning an ending PROVIDENCE, RI: A Por- F Features tuguese teenager has found a message in a bottle that traveled at least 2,400 miles from a Ver- mont teenager. Hart shows range in tearjerker ‘Fatherhood’ Christian Santos, 17, was spearfi shing in the Azores when By Lindsey Bahr store. This is not a “Tully”-style representation of the saga in two parts. he found a crumpled plastic bot- deep exhaustion of caring for an infant. The actor said the fi nal two fi lms could potentially tle that was tossed into the sea evin Hart can make us laugh and cry, it seems, The fi lm does a good job balancing the drama with release in 2023 then 2024. near Rhode Island in 2018, The even if the vehicle was practically engineered to Boston Globe reported. K the comedy however, and is helped by a strong support- “Every story deserves its own ending,” said Diesel bring on the waterworks. In “Fatherhood,” on Netflix ing cast, including Lil Rel Howery and Anthony Car- during a press junket for “F9” when asked about the Santos’ mother, Molly San- on Friday, he plays a new dad whose wife dies shortly tos, posted a photo of the note rigan as Matt’s best friends. franchise’s future. Despite the end of the saga, he said after childbirth and he’s left raising their daughter on the “Fast and Furious” cinematic universe will continue on Facebook asking for others to his own. share the post in hopes of fi nding Moments on. the writer to share how far the To be fair, there’s been many built-in tearjerkers that And within the sitcom dramedy aesthetic, there are When Diesel told his daughter about the franchise’s message traveled. have failed (remember “Life Itself”?). But something moments of truth and grace, from Matt panic-vac- conclusion, the actor said she began shedding tears. The note inside of a Powerade has to go very, very wrong for a fi lm to mess up that uuming to simulate white noise so the colic-y baby “I know people are going to feel like it doesn’t have bottle was written in orange kind of premise. “Fatherhood” doesn’t just succeed on can sleep to him pleading with his mother-in-law that to end, but I think all good things should,” he said. marker on a notecard that reads, that emotional level, though — it’s also a cut about the he’ll never know if he’s a good parent if he doesn’t “There are reasons for a fi nale. I think this franchise rest, thanks to a smart and funny and basically authen- “It is Thanksgiving. I am 13 and get the chance to try. It’s never entirely clear why has deserved it.” visiting family in Rhode Island. tic script (director Paul Weitz and Dana Stevens) and Hart’s inspired casting. he doesn’t want their help or needs to move back to Diesel has starred as Dominic Toretto since the fran- I am from Vermont.” The note their hometown. included an email address to The story is based on Matthew Logelin’s mem- chise’s inaugural fi lm “The Fast and Furious” in 2001. respond. oir, “Two Kisses for Maddy: A Memoir of Loss and “Fatherhood” skips forward to kindergarten, which The movies have become big earners at the domestic Molly Santo is a little jarring, but it’s nice to see Maddy (Melody and international box offi ce, with the past two fi lms FRIDAY-SATURDAY, JUNE 18-19, 2021 said that she Love,” about losing his wife after she gave birth to sent an email to the address, but their daughter. Since its publication 10 years ago, it’s Hurd) with a personality and point of view and to give each making more than $1 billion. never received a response. (AP) had a few different lives, first as a Lifetime movie, Hart someone other than a baby to connect with. It also Last year, Universal pushed back the release of “F9” ❑ ❑ ❑ then as a Channing Tatum vehicle, before finally allows the fi lm to introduce a love interest (played by due to the coronavirus outbreak. The new fi lm not only landing Weitz (“About a Boy”) as a director and Hart DeWanda Wise). You may never be surprised by where brings back a fan favorite — Sung Kang’s Han — SALT LAKE CITY: “Real “Fatherhood” is going, but you forgive it, too. along with new additions including John Cena, but the Housewives of Salt Lake City” as his star. Hart plays Matt, a Boston professional with a beau- It’s all done with a good heart. Even the cliché mo- story will also literally send a car into space. It’s ex- star Jen Shah and her defense ments are understandable. Sometimes brutal realism is pected to be one of the season’s biggest hits. attorneys have asked a federal tiful wife. The fi lm introduces him at her funeral, be- judge in New York this week to fore cutting back to how it happened.