Lessons from Luca: What Happens When We Let Go of our Secrets (part one)
Porto Rosso was a town that regarded sea monsters like the Pharisees treated tax collectors and prostitutes. The lowest of the low. But that didn’t stop Jesus from sitting and dining with them anyway.
The following is a guest post written by my friend Rachael Kelley. Something Rachael and I have bonded over is how we both love to for look for God in unexpected places, and one of these places is films — especially animated ones.
Learn more about Rachael in her bio at the end of this post!
I rewatched the Pixar movie Luca a couple of weeks ago. I’ve seen it a handful of times now (or maybe two handfuls), but on this last rewatch, I was struck by the profound beauty displayed in the movie’s climactic scene.
As I walk back through these moments, I invite you to consider how many glimmers of truth are hidden in the unsuspecting corners of our lives. Our Father has carefully placed them there for us to discover every day, each one like a glittering gemstone that reflects the beauty and grace of His character.
Sometimes, we even find Him in a ninety minute movie made for kids.
(Spoilers ahead!)
The Story
If you haven’t watched the movie before, the story follows a curious, intelligent sea monster named Luca. The sea monsters in this Pixar world (which are, of course, adorable) have the ability to transform into humans when they leave the water. Luca meets another young sea monster named Alberto, and together, the two journey to the nearby human town with the shared dream of owning Vespa.
The problem about this town is that the locals are set on killing any sea monsters they can find. Among the sea-monster-hunters is Massimo, the father of Giulia. Giulia is a local girl the boys team up with for the town’s annual “Porto Rosso Cup” race.
Luca and Alberto—as well as Luca’s parents, who have journeyed to the town in search of their son—are careful not to reveal their hidden identities. But after Luca and Alberto get into a fight, Giulia discovers the truth about both boys. She pleads with Luca to leave town and abandon the race, but he decides to stay and compete anyway. Getting a vespa to mend the bond with Alberto is more important.
Race day arrives, and the first two rounds go okay. But when they reach the biking portion, a new problem arises. I’m going to describe this scene in a bit more detail, but if you recently watched it, feel free to skip to the next section.
Dark clouds creep over the sky as Luca bikes up a hill, and rain starts to fall. Each drop reveals a fresh patch of green scales on his arms, threatening to reveal the secret he’s kept so carefully hidden. In a panic, he takes cover under a nearby awning.
And who comes running up the hill with an umbrella? The very friend that Luca betrayed: Alberto.
This is when the town’s local jerk, Ercole, catches up to Luca. He kicks Alberto when he passes him, and Alberto’s cover is blown as the umbrella slips from his hands and the rain reveals his sea monster scales.
Ercole slams on his brakes and starts shouting for his harpoon. Luca is still hunkered under the awning, but when the townsfolk start to throw nets around Alberto, he can’t stay hidden any longer.
For the sake of his friend, and for the love that he has for him, Luca decides that it’s time to finally put his secret to death.
Luca grips his rusty bike handles, steels his eyes ahead, and starts to pedal. With each drop of rain that falls, more and more patches of green scales appear. With his shameful identity on full display and his life at risk, now it’s his turn to save Alberto.
The two fly through the town with Ercole in hot pursuit and a panicked Giulia right behind him. As they approach the finish line, Ercole prepares to take a lethal harpoon shot at the boys. Giulia knocks him off his bike before he can go through with it, but she goes down hard with him.
When Luca and Alberto see her fall, they hit the brakes just before reaching the ocean — a place where they’ll be safe and accepted by others like them. The finish line is surrounded by townspeople, who now realize there are two teenage sea monsters right before their eyes. Looks of disgust, fear, and anger sweep the crowd as they behold the myth turned reality before them.
Ercole and the rest of the townspeople begin to advance with weapons pointed at Luca and Alberto. Giulia tries to defend the boys, but Ercole keeps hurling his insults. What finally silences him is when Giulia’s father — a character who has made his disdain toward sea monsters clear from the very beginning — steps forward.
“I know who they are,” Massimo booms. He approaches his daughter, who seems unafraid of the supposed monsters standing on either side of her, and looks at the three children one at a time. Finally, he speaks again.
“They are Luca, and Alberto.”
He drops his harpoon. It clatters against the stone-lined street.
“And they are…the winners!”
Luca and Alberto.
Not half-human, half-sea creatures that some don’t even count as people.
Not horrific beasts to be feared and killed on sight.
Not monsters.
They are simply Luca, and Alberto.
Bravery Goes Both Ways
There are so many beautiful things about this climactic moment. Out of fear and in order to survive, Luca and Alberto had each buried their secret identity far beneath the surface. They took what they believed made them monsters and covered it up with human smiles and hands and clothes: disguises that would make them acceptable to the strange world they had entered.
But when those masks were finally stripped away—first Alberto’s by the hand of another, and then Luca’s by his own choice—the boys received an unexpected response.
Acceptance.
When I initially started writing about this moment, I identified Massimo as the first one to accept Luca and Alberto for who they were. He was the first to defend their character in a public, spoken manner. But when I thought back on it, I realized he wasn’t the first person who saw the young sea monsters for who they truly were.
It was Giulia.
Giulia, the friend who knew what it was like to feel like an outcast. The friend who didn’t run away from Luca when she found out the truth about him. The friend who gave up her chance to win the race, a dream she’d had for years, in order to save Luca and Albertos’ lives.
Giulia has a unique ability to see past her friends’ “monstrous” identity and straight into the heart of who they are. Whether that was a trait she inherited from her father or not, it was her acceptance of Luca and Alberto that stopped Massimo in his tracks and led him to choose a new perspective.
Giulia and her father’s courageous acceptance of the boys was so countercultural (in their Pixar sea town, anyway) that I couldn’t help but think of the way Jesus treated the outcasts of His time. Porto Rosso was a town that regarded sea monsters much like the Pharisees treated tax collectors and prostitutes.
The lowest of the low.
The scum of the earth.
Sinners that didn’t deserve a single scrap of love.
But that didn’t stop Jesus from sitting and dining with them anyway. That didn’t stop Him from loving them with the dignity He knew they deserved.
Some ridiculed Him for His radical love. Some looked away, too ashamed and afraid to admit that He might have been onto something.
But others were changed by the way Jesus loved, and they started treating outcasts in a different way.
Likewise, instead of judging Luca and Alberto for something seen as wrong or unforgivable, Giulia and her father chose to see them in a new way. Not as monsters, but as beloved friends.
And like Jesus, their love changed how others saw the outcasts, too.
But in order for Luca and Alberto to receive that grace, there first had to be an unmasking.
Massimo’s bravery to stand up for the boys was a result of Luca’s choice to sacrifice his false self for the sake of protecting Alberto. If Luca had chosen to stay hidden, he never would have experienced acceptance from Giulia, Massimo, and eventually, the entire town. But because he gave up his secret, he got to experience love in a way that wasn’t possible while he was hiding.
In cases of radical love, bravery goes both ways.
Stay tuned for Part Two coming next Friday!
about the author
While Rachael Kelley has lived in a number of places, she has been happy to call Southeastern Pennsylvania home for the past several years. Rachael works in the marketing / design field, but she also loves writing, taking walks, playing ukulele, and staying involved in her local church. You can follow Rachael on Substack, where she’ll be launching her publication this spring!
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