A One Mann’s Movies review of “Turning Red” (2022).
My local zoo is Marwell Zoo in Hampshire and my favourite animal in the whole zoo is the Red Panda. I hope the zoo are plugged into Disney-Pixar’s “Turning Red” as a great revenue earning opportunity. I can see hoards of pre- and young-teen girls descending on them!
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
Plot Summary:
It’s Toronto in 2002. Mei Lee (voice of Rosalie Chiang) is struggling to navigate a difficult age for a girl. She’s 13 years old; a bit of a school swat; and a dutiful daughter in helping her mother Ming (voice of Sandra Oh) run the Korean temple in the city. But puberty hits Mei Lee in a BIG way. Following a family trait, whenever she gets excitable she turns into a giant red panda. And an emerging rebellious streak in the young girl means that she gets exciteable A LOT!
Certification:
Talent:
Starring: Rosalie Chiang, Sandra Oh.
Directed by: Domee Shi.
Written by: Domee Shi, Julia Sho and Sarah Streicher.
Twitter Handle: #PixarTurningRed.
“Turning Red” Review:
Positives:
- There’s an anarchic bent to this Pixar that suits the subject matter of a rebellious teen going through one of the key changes in life. Any parent of girls will appreciate this! I can quite see why this movie has allegedly caused uproar in some middle-class American households. I understand a number of “THIS DOESN’T REFLECT OUR FAMILY VALUES” missiles have been launched into Disney about this one. This just makes the movie even more appealing to me!
- Bravo to Pixar for embracing the whole concept of menstruation – albeit obtusely. This movie has the first presentation of female sanitary products in a Disney cartoon! (Pads… clearly tampons were a step too far!) Although the analogy is clear (and spelled out by her mother through the armfull of pads!), it’s arguable that the “red panda” is perhaps more about the raging hormones of teenage life than the actual periods themselves.
- The characterisations in this one are just so well fleshed out and multi-dimensional:
- Mei Lee is another strong female Disney lead, following on from Isabela in “Encanto”. But she is also deliciously fragile and flawed. When she should be standing up to her mother, and for her girlfriends, she doesn’t. And that fragility makes her utterly relatable.
- Ming is also a fine creation as the well-meaning but out-of-touch mother. Her attempts to keep her daughter safe from life’s corrupting influences are also immediately relatable to parents. So much so that the excruciatingly embarrassing outcomes of the ‘help’ cut deep.
- Jin Lee (Orion Lee) as her father is also brilliant. A quiet doormat of a man for most of the movie, his contributions in the final reel are positively uplifting.
- The mega band “4*Town” (“but there are five of them”!) are excrutiatingly well-painted. The epitome of K-pop style idols!
- The biggest positive for this movie is that my granddaughter, Eva, absolutely LOVES it. The fact that she associates so well with this movie, at the age of 5, makes me fearful for her parents in 6 or 7 years time!
Negatives:
- The illustrious Mrs Movie Man had some reservations about the central tenet of the film. Her view was that for a movie that is supposed to be painting periods as being normal, natural and guilt-free, the “red panda” (for a large proportion of the film) is seen as a negative and destructive thing. It’s something to be ashamed of and hidden away. It all kind of works out in the end, but I get her point with this.
Summary Thoughts on “Turning Red”
It’s perhaps not top-dollar Pixar, but it is nonetheless extremely engaging and watchable. A movie that kids and adults alike can enjoy. You wonder what an emboldened Pixar might come out with next as a sequel. An epic with guilt-free masturbation at its heart perhaps? The mind boggles.
Trailer for “Turning Red”
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdKzUbAiswE .
