On the surface, Luca is a story about sea monsters who want to be children. But underwater, deep down, it’s a film about growing up. About the fear of the unknown, the need to belong, and that blurry stage where you still don’t know who you are, but you sense there’s something different about you.
Luca lives in a world where he’s been told that the surface is dangerous, that humans are monsters, and that «it’s better to stay where you are, safe and quiet.» His journey begins the day he dares to look up. What he finds there isn’t just sunshine and money. He finds freedom, but also an internal conflict: can he be who he is without being rejected?
From a psychological perspective, Luca can be read as a metaphor for the development of identity, that process that Erik Erikson places in adolescence as a crisis between «identity vs. role confusion.» Luca wants to explore who he is outside the family mold, but doing so means breaking the rules, disappointing his parents, and daring to live with uncertainty.
The figure of Alberto, his wild and brave friend, functions as a kind of zone of proximal development (Vygotsky would be happy): an other who pushes him beyond his fears, who challenges him to try and make mistakes, who invites him to imagine a version of himself he didn’t even know he was capable of. Together they dream of owning a Vespa and traveling the world. But beyond the scooter, what they desire is autonomy. To be able to decide their own path, even if they fall.
The film also presents the phenomenon of passing, that need to hide your true identity to fit into an environment that doesn’t accept you as you are. Luca and Alberto must hide the fact that they are sea monsters because the town would hunt them down. How many children and adolescents experience this firsthand? Kids who hide their sexual orientation, their neurodivergence, their tastes, or their sensibilities to avoid rejection.
But Luca isn’t a tragic story. It’s a story of discovery. It’s a celebration of difference, of the friendship that saves, and of adult figures who learn to let go. Because yes, his parents follow him, they look for him, but they also let him go. And that’s growing up: separating without breaking love.
There’s also a beautiful metaphor about rivalry and stereotypes. The town hates monsters because it doesn’t know them. But when it sees them as children, as people, as equals… it opens up. The film reminds us that prejudice is born from fear and is healed with closeness. That no one truly hates something they’ve looked at with tenderness.
And like all good movies for children (and adults), Luca has a «cookie crisis,» only here it’s with ice cream. When Alberto reveals himself as he is and Luca denies it, the conflict explodes. How many times do we betray those who understand us most, just to fit in? But we also learn: that true friends forgive. That growing up is also learning to repair.
Luca is, at its core, a story about what happens when you dare to surface. Not to leave behind who you are, but to discover what you can be. Because in the end, as Giulia says: “Some will never accept who you are. But others will. And those are the ones that matter.”
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