Turning Red - Review

Turning Red will debut on Disney+ and on limited theaters on March 11, 2022.

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It’s a shame that Turning Red won’t have a wide theatrical release, given its wealth of laugh- and/or cheer-out-loud moments. While Pixar’s recent output has welcomed adults with open arms — people who likely grew up watching the studio’s original films — their latest feels unapologetically in-tune with younger audiences, both narratively and aesthetically, without compromising the heart and humor that makes these movies shine. Directed by Domee Shi, whose short film Bao preceded Incredibles 2, it’s a mile-a-minute romp set in Toronto in the early aughts, about a young Chinese Canadian teenager whose puberty brings about complications that are equal parts personal, cultural, and magical. They also result in an endearing and enjoyable story about family and friendship, with parables for growing up that are extremely on the nose (as they should be for a kids’ movie), but which arrive in the kind of inspired creative packaging that Pixar has needed for some time.

The stakes of Turning Red are both smaller and more personal than you might expect. Meilin’s predicament no doubt drives the familial conflict, as her mother tries to help her keep it under wraps (and keep her feelings bottled up, lest she Hulk out). However, this tension soon becomes entwined with a story of Meilin and her three best friends trying to see their favorite boy band live in concert, a scenario that both clashes with Meilin’s unpredictable changes, and ties a neat bow on themes that get rightfully messy, between the lofty expectations of an immigrant family, navigating a mother-daughter relationship (at a time when it’s sure to become more fraught), being conditioned to keep your emotions in check as a teenage girl, and growing up alongside pals who are just as confused and hormonal as you are.

After a while, Meilin’s red panda alter ego comes to represent all these things and more, but the film is never overwhelmed by its litany of allegories. This is owed largely to its crystal-clear visual approach, which makes each moment (and each metaphor) marvelously fun. Where recent Pixar films like The Good Dinosaur, Soul, and Toy Story 4 have skewed towards more realistic environments, and toward tactile direction that impersonates physical camera work, Turning Red injects the studio’s usual computer-generated aesthetic with a hyper-charged anime approach, between crash-zooms that heighten emotions — at a time in the characters’ lives when each new feeling of anger or attraction feels like an uncontrollable rush — and sparkling eyes that keep the focus squarely, and amusingly, on Meilin and her friends’ romantic crushes.

The character details are just as delightful. Meilin’s friend group is diverse, not just ethnically, but also when it comes to their designs and personalities. There’s her sardonic South Asian pal Priya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) who speaks more with her body language than her expressions. There’s her short, hyper-active Korean buddy Abby (Hyein Park), who practically bounces off the walls. And then there’s her lanky white best friend Miriam (Ava Morse), who has a longer parental leash than her three Asian comrades, but who seems to understand Meilin just a tiny bit better than the others (as with any friend dynamic, you have your best friends, but you also have your “best” best friend). They’re all perfectly awkward for a story of 13-year-old girls, each with wildly different heights and body types, but they all fit together perfectly as a group, and their insecurities seem to melt away when they’re together.

They also dress in distinct, bright, primary colors that allow them to stand out in most scenes, which makes them resemble the various anthropomorphic emotions in Inside Out (on which Shi was a story artist), though this connection may not be accidental. Not only do Meilin’s friends calm her down (and occasionally fire her up), but Turning Red bears a key thematic resemblance to Pete Docter’s 2015 film as well: it’s as much about the physical pressures of growing up as it is about reconciling and making room for complicated, contradictory, and unpleasant emotions as well. 

All of this would be bog-standard were it not for how every moment seems to shoot for the stars.

Just as detailed as Meilin’s friend group are her family dynamics. Her understanding (and understated) father Jin has slightly more of a Chinese accent than Ming, who seems to be more concerned with assimilating than he is; this is also one of the reasons Ming hopes to keep Meilin’s panda problem under wraps, given its cultural origins, and the way it could be perceived by non-Chinese characters (she rarely seems to give Meilin’s friends enough credit). However, the specifics of their mother-daughter dynamic are perhaps what shine the most. The two characters have noticeably different designs — Ming is much more prim and proper — but when the film begins, their conversations and even their body movements mirror one another. This sets up a story in which they become each other’s reflections in both overt and subtle ways as they eventually fall out of sync, and as Meilin faces trials her mother once had to face as well. Another touching detail is the fact that Ming’s nickname for Meilin is “Mei Mei,” which also happens to be a Chinese honorific for a younger sister; while their parent-child dynamic is no doubt tested, so is their bond of friendship, and their sense of loving, mutual support.

All of this would be bog-standard, both as a kiddie outing and as a tale of immigrant-first gen culture clash, were it not for how every moment seems to shoot for the stars. While the more muted and realistic scenes are reserved for a few painfully quiet emotional moments, most of the film charges forward with a slapstick, Looney Tune energy that comes occasionally drenched in the vivid hues of a ’90s Disney dream (or nightmare) sequence. Ludwig Göransson’s score is dynamic and playful, and even helps tell its own story by stringing together western pop and traditional Chinese influences, which culminates in unexpected ways during Turning Red’s raucous, hilarious, and pulsating climax.

Every dramatic transition has its own zippy lighting cue, which makes the film a joke-filled ride, but its visual gags always enhance the tension and emotions rather than undercutting them. A group of Meilin’s aunties, who enter the story at a pivotal time, arrive like Hollywood movie stars drenched in floodlights, while the attractive boy band sensation 4-Town — a reflection of early 2000s pop, but with a Korean member to place them in today’s zeitgeist — are practically angels accompanied by divine sunlight. Even Meilin’s outbursts warp the entire fabric of the film around her, since she begins to see herself as a beastly inconvenience, unworthy of taking up space, until her friends and family convince her otherwise. 

Most of all, it’s a movie that’s frank about the most awkward moments of puberty, from embarrassment over burgeoning sexuality, to inexplicable anger, to dealing with bodily insecurity, which it turns into lively and imaginative scenes at every turn. There’s never a dull moment in Turning Red, both because Shi and co-writer Julia Cho lace each beat and interaction with layers of meaning, and because the whole thing comes wrapped in cartoon influences that value expression above realism, which is something modern Hollywood animation occasionally forgets.