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 (041422)
Pixar Animation has never strictly targeted children with their movies, but
they’ve made a noticeable move to more adult fare in recent years, hoping to
challenge family audiences with deeper dramatic offerings and more sophisticated
writing. For “Turning Red,” the company takes a look at the unpredictability of
adolescence, targeting the early teen years with a tale about a 13-year-old girl
who’s transitioning to maturity via full-body red panda breakouts. “Turning Red”
will have younger viewers asking a few questions about the demands of puberty,
but Pixar keeps matters appreciable with a fantasy tale of giant animal
transformation, parenthood, and friendship, with director Domee Shi bringing the
broadness of anime to the usual bitter sweetness of a Pixar production.
Mei (Rosalie Chiang) is a 13-year-old girl living in Toronto, enjoying a happy
life with her best friends, Miriam (Ava Morse), Priya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan),
and Abby (Hyein Park), and excelling at school. Mei is obedient to her mother,
Ming (Sandra Oh), an overprotective parent keeping a close eye on her daughter,
refusing to let her experience anything that she hasn’t already approved. Mei
and her pals are super fans of the boy band 4-Town, with the group making a tour
stop in Canada, and standing in the way of such bliss is the arrival of a family
curse, with Mei feeling new emotions for the first time, triggering a full-body
change into a giant red panda. At first unaware of what’s happening, the teen
panics, learning that peace of mind makes the fur disappear, while Ming explains
the history behind the curse, which can be reversed with a ritual occurring
during a red moon. This wait forces the child to live with her strangeness for
four weeks, navigating school and friendship with her new secret.
Mei has a beaming personality, fueled by adolescent enthusiasm for the joys in
her life, which include school success and partnership with her top “besties,”
forming a team with Abby, Priya, and Miriam, helping to support hallway honor as
bullies, such as Tyler (Tristan Allerick Chen), seek to bring them down. Shi
creates a vivid understanding of personality and pure teen hype for daily
achievements, and Lee provides a perfect vocal interpretation of such energy,
helping to bring Mei to life. The character is less confident around her mother,
finding Ming controlling, but habitually so, trying to become the parent she was
taught to be, making sure her child excels academically and behaves accordingly,
keeping her responsible around the family business, which involves management of
a Chinese temple. “Turning Red” doesn’t depict Ming as frosty to her daughter,
just rigid in her expectations, which keeps Mei in line as she enters her
teenage years. Ming is the new Marlin, but this Nemo is different, with maturity
playing a pivotal role in “Turning Red.”
The screenplay (by Shi and Julia Cho) targets Mei’s awakening, which begins as a
gentle refusal of cute boys becomes something to obsess over, while fandom of
4-Town reaches new peaks of excitement, making the concert a must-do event. Mei
also explodes into the body of a red panda, left with nothing but questions as
she struggles to manage her secret development, which Ming initially believes is
her daughter wrestling with menstruation. An answer soon arrives with the tale
of Sun Yee, an ancestor who transformed emotional power into red panda form,
giving Mei one option to break the curse, participating in a ritual. “Turning
Red” sets a goal in this red moon event, but follows the main character as she
gets used to her new body, feeling love and support from her friends, and the
gang learns to monetize the situation, giving classmates a chance to take a
picture with Mei, helping the team earn cash for their hotly anticipated 4-Town
explosion.
“Turning Red” is cartoonish at times, with Shi adding anime touches to the
feature, which works to celebrate teen fervor. Asian culture emerges in
different ways in the movie as well, which is also mindful of keeping the
situation as emotionally real as possible, exploring the tentative process of
teen rebellion and the thin-ice experience of mother/daughter bonds during the
first steps of this tumultuous event. Pixar Formula isn’t denied, inspiring a
flatter final act with more pronounced fantasy detours, including time inside
the “astral realm.” The picture does rebound with a return to intimate emotions
with a specific situation of newfound independence, which will likely hit
certain viewers in a profound way. “Turning Red” has a lot of laughs, gorgeous
animation, and an outstanding voice cast, but as the best Pixar films do, it
finds a way to address specific feelings and human events in a way no other
production team even attempts to do anymore.
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