Turning Red
Pixar’s twenty-fifth outing is a feel-good blast of oestrogen for lovers of their inner animal.
Period drama: Abby, Miriam, Priya and Meilin The Big Red Panda
Turning Red marks another courageous leap forward for Pixar. Tackling both the ‘inconveniences’ of insipient womanhood (puberty) and the tyranny of tiger mothers, it is a deeply personal project for its director Domee Shi, whose first feature this is. In fact, it’s the first Pixar film solely directed by a woman and Shi, a Sino-Canadian animator, has made the most of the opportunity. She won an Oscar for Bao (2018), the first Pixar short directed by a woman, which was released alongside Incredibles 2 and featured a dumpling that is reared and then eaten by its over-protective mother. Shi has drawn liberally from her own culture, and undoubtedly has serious mother issues, which will become apparent when you see Turning Red.
Our protagonist is Meilin Lee, or ‘Mei’, a 13-year-old living in Toronto (Shi’s home city). Mei is an over-achieving Sino-Canadian in eighth-grade, who manages simultaneously to be a star pupil, a popular rebel, the school swat, a musical genius and a Momma’s girl. Her only enemies are borne out of jealousy, she has a passion for housework and her worst memory was when she came second in the spelling bee. But, like every 13-year-old, she is growing into a woman, her hormones are exploding and she has a major crush on the boy band 4*Town (think *NSYNC, who were big news at the time of the film’s 2002 setting). Mei’s mother, the domineering Ming Lee (voiced by Sandra Oh), is of a more classical frame of mind and thinks all teenage boys are degenerate. Then, one day, Mei reaches that special age when puberty takes over everything else, a change that is manifested in Mei’s transformation into a giant smelly red panda. Of course, Mei is mortified, even if in Chinese folklore the red panda represents good fortune and prosperity. As if…
Turning Red was originally destined for cinemas when the Omicron variant in the US changed the corporate mind-set. It is a shame, because, like Pixar’s excellent Soul and Luca, Turning Red is a pleasure that will be denied the appreciation of packed auditoria erupting with childish glee. And besides the important biological issues that the film addresses – along with the tug-of-war between family tradition and peer appreciation – it is a funny, hugely enjoyable coming-of-age romp that every young teen should identify with. The message is clear: we all need to champion our differences and to celebrate rather than hide what makes us special.
The distinctive Toronto backgrounds are embraced rather than blended into a homogenous New York state of kind, and the infectious songs are penned by none other than Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell. What’s not to like? Only the final chapter pushes things too far, much like the recent Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which also begins in a familiar North American setting (San Francisco) before going all fantastical. We may all be harbouring our own version of an inner beast, but it needn’t go all Ghostbusters on us. Before then the ingenious narrative, along with its delightful diversions, was quite enough to power an inventive, relevant joyride in which compromise emerges as a far more fearsome creature than any Big Red Panda.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Voices of Rosalie Chiang, Sandra Oh, Ava Morse, Hyein Park, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Orion Lee, Wai Ching Ho, Tristan Allerick Chen, James Hong, Lori Tan Chinn, Finneas O'Connell.
Dir Domee Shi, Pro Lindsey Collins, Ex Pro Pete Docter, Screenplay Domee Shi and Julia Cho, Ph Mahyar Abousaeedi and Jonathan Pytko, Pro Des Rona Liu, Ed Nicholas C. Smith and Steve Bloom, Music Ludwig Göransson; original songs by Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell, Sound Ren Klyce.
Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar Animation Studios-Walt Disney.
100 mins. USA. 2022. UK and US Rel: 11 March 2022. Available on Disney+. Cert. PG.
