SPOILERS are ahead for Luca.
Since the first trailer for Luca dropped, film fans were instantly reminded by Luca Guadagnino’s 2017 Oscar-winning movie, Call Me By Your Name. Both movies take place off the coast of Northern Italy and center on two male characters as they spend the summer together. Between the films’ comparable visual aesthetics and growing urges for Disney to make an LGBTQ+ positive movie, some fans would like to see the movie as summer love. And Jack Dylan Grazer, one of the movie’s famous voice actors, has some thoughts
Jack Dylan Grazer recently worked with Call Me By Your Name’s Luca Guadagnino for the HBO series We Are Who We Are. So we were curious about how the actor felt about Luca comparisons to the gay romance. In his words:
No, there’s no Call Me By Your Name in it. They’re friends. Alberto and Luca are friends. I know for a fact that there will be dirty fanfiction, but I’m not talking about that while I’m promoting the movie.
That's a fair response considering the characters at the center of Luca are young kids and the film is about their friendship as the sea monsters leave the ocean and explore the fictional Italian town of Portorosso. Even so, the 17-year-old already had a feeling that erotica about the characters was likely being written as we spoke.
Luca’s director Enrico Casarosa has also been asked about these comparisons as well, sharing in response that he was most interested in exploring “their friendship in that kind of pre-puberty world” without romance having a place in the story. That being said, many who have since seen the movie are latching onto some queer subtext in terms of its story as well. As one Twitter user shared:
Luca revolves around two sea monsters who try and fit in the town of Portorosso while they participate in a triathlon (who fear sea monsters) without villagers finding out about their true identity. At the end of the film, Luca decides to stop hiding who he is and finish the race as a sea monster and he is surprised to be met with acceptance. The movie ends with Luca going off to school with the risk involved of being bullied or hurt for his identity. As another fan said:
When speaking to Jack Dylan Grazer about the ending and if he’d like to see the characters return if there was a sequel, the actor liked the idea and said he thinks it would “be cool if we got back together and fell in love,” before adding a cheeky peach reference from Call Me By Your Name in reference to our earlier conversation. When speaking about the visual similarities to Luca and Guadagnino’s award winner, he said this:
It’s beautiful. I love Italy. This movie does such a phenomenal job of painting the picture and encapsulating the real true vibe, essence and culture of Italy. The colors, the hues of red, blue and yellow, It’s stunning. I was in Italy for six and a half months shooting an HBO series directed by Luca Guadagnino, who did Call Me By Your Name and I got back and I got a call to go back to this studio in Burbank to talk with Enrico Casarosa, the director of Luca, and I remember he was talking to me in Italian, and I was going, ‘dude, I just got back from Italy, I love Italy.’ It was really soon after I got back from Italy and it was really synchronistic and coincidental to have two Italian jobs in a row.
While Luca is about two young friends and not lovers, its story is certainly connecting with people who connect with feeling like an outsider, including those in the LGBTQ+ community. You can check out the latest Pixar movie by streaming it now on Disney+.
