Turning Red
Might this be a metaphor for something?
Hey all, I got enough positive responses to this idea, so this week we’re taking a break from the regular programming to turn to the latest from Pixar. We’ll get back to the books next week — probably the Questioneers series, but not 100% decided on that.
As always, please forward to anyone who might be interested, and if you’re new here, feel free to go ahead and subscribe:
Now onto…
The Movie: Turning Red
The Studio: Pixar
The Writer and Director: Domee Shi (she’s worked on other Pixar projects, but this was her first feature-length as writer or director)
The Runtime: 1 hour and 40 minutes
The Review: For a movie about a girl who turns into a red panda, this really doesn’t feel like it’s about a girl who turns into a red panda. That’s not to say that the panda thing is in anyway incidental — it’s the full focus of the plot — but it is so clearly a coming-of-age metaphor that when looking back on the movie, I don’t think of it as “that panda movie.” In fact, my most enduring image from it has nothing to do with the panda.
I’ll get to that in a bit. First let’s set some context.
Our protagonist is Mei Lee, a 13-year-old girl of Chinese descent living in Toronto (making this a rare mainstream movie centered on Asian immigrants). She has a group of three close friends, all with distinct styles and personalities, but who do everything together and are obsessed with the same boy band. She is also fully devoted to her mom, who runs a temple in the city, and her school work. Mei is expected to get excellent grades and she always does. It’s a scenario that could feel like a stereotype, specifically the whole “tiger mom” deal, but it’s portrayed with a lot of honesty and humanity, and each character feels very much like their own person.
At the start, Mei has her two worlds — friends and family — and there is no conflict in that because she’s up for fully meeting the expectations of both, more or less, with the caveat that her family gets priority. The other reason that there isn’t a conflict is that she can be different people in the two settings. With her friends, she is brash, confident, obsessed with her favorite band, and starting to get curious about boys, and with her family, she is diligent, polite, and narrowly focused on her work.
That dual reality set up, in which one inhabits a more conventional world at home, and a very separate one of shared anxieties and obsessions in an entirely different social context with friends is the reality for millions of adolescents. It’s a big part of what defines adolescence for many (certainly did for me).
In most cases, that situation just muddles along, with the tectonic plates occasionally colliding with arguments, acts of rebellion, and the like. In Turning Red, what forces a reckoning is that Mei starts turning into a giant red panda when she gets too worked up emotionally.
So that’s the basic set up, and I won’t spoil how it plays out, but there are two choices made by the filmmakers that, for me, raised this movie from simply entertaining to thoughtful and heartwarming.
The first was that the movie didn’t spend too much time and tension on the secrecy of Mei’s metamorphosis. That’s certainly a factor, but in a lot of similar movies it’s the main thing that drives the action. Turning Red deals with that expediently so we can spend more time with Mei exploring what’s going on and what it means to her.
The second is how the kids are portrayed. The movie doesn’t hide how they are in one of the most awkward stages of life, but it also doesn’t seek to ridicule or embarrass them for it. They’re confident and proud, and we don’t see that come back to bite them so that all watching can laugh at the foolishness of 13-year-olds.
Which brings me to the little snippet of Turning Red that stuck with me the most. It’s just Mei and her three besties hanging out, and something inspires them to sing the chorus of a hit from their favorite band. They sing in unison, but not particularly on key. They don’t sound laughably horrible, but they also aren’t suddenly imbued with movie magic that allows them to suddenly strike up a four-part harmony. They sound like four kids bonding over a song they all love in all their awkward glory, and there was something kind of perfect about that.
I have no particular desire to watch movies about the trials and tribulations of teenagers, and neither does my six-year-old, who is a ways away from most of the core issues of the movie (right? RIGHT?), but there was plenty for both of us to enjoy. Pixar is really really good at making movies that appeal across age groups.
After all, it also works pretty well as just a movie about a girl who turns into a panda.
Here’s the trailer (mild spoilers, but nothing that will ruin it for you):