Mark Reviews Movies: TURNING RED

Turning Red, Disney/Pixar

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 10, 2022

Of all the metaphors for adolescence, the one at the center of Turning Red might be about the most accurate a person could imagine. In the computer-animated film, co-written and directed by Domee Shi, a 13-year-old girl awakens one morning to find herself transformed into a giant red panda.

The obvious connection, because it's made directly within the story, is that Meilin "Mei" Lee (voice of Rosalie Chiang) has had her first period, but that's too simple and, from a certain perspective, a little bit insulting. There's a far more basic and comprehensive way to look at Mei's sudden and constant changing. It's the simple fact that every teenager, everywhere and at every time, starts to see herself or himself as some kind of unfamiliar, frightening monster of hormones—those unfortunate growth spurts, those strange new feelings, the sense that everyone is looking at you as some sort of freak, the fear that nobody could possibly understand how all of that confusion feels.

The change at the heart of this film is, well, just that—a change on a physical, emotional, and psychological level. It's a good joke, because of the severity of the transformation and the underlying honesty of it, but the reason the film resonates is that Shi and co-screenwriter Julia Cho are sincere and straightforward in addressing the challenges and consequences of hitting puberty. Well, they're as sincere and straightforward as filmmakers making an animated comedy about a teenage girl turning into a large animal can be. Being a teenager is hard enough already, so one might as well have a few laughs in preparing for, going through, or reminiscing about the experience.

Mei, currently in her last year before high school, lives in Toronto with her demanding mother Ming (voice of Sandra Oh) and laid-back father Jin (voice of Orion Lee). The girl announces she's a rebel who plays by her own rules in an introductory montage, although the truth is that a lot of her classmates find her to be odd and her so-called rebellious streak doesn't extend to her mother.

The family of three runs a temple devoted to their ancestors from China—particularly one who possessed an almost-spiritual connection to red pandas. Whenever her mother says so, Mei is working at the temple, even though it means giving up time she could be spending with her close-knit group of friends. Ming seems to expect perfection from her daughter—or, at least, that's how Mei perceives it.

Our protagonist and her pals—Miriam (voice of Ava Morse), Priya (voice of Maitreyi Ramakrishan), and Abby (voice of Hyein Park)—are super-fans of a popular boy band, but Mei is confused and a bit grossed-out when she discovers her friends are looking at a local boy with the same sort of infatuation. She's even more confounded when she starts having those same feelings and some romantic fantasies about the older teen, too.

The chaos culminates when Mei awakens the next morning in the form of a giant red panda. Ming explains that this is normal—in their family, at least, on account of that ancestor. If Mei keeps her emotions in check, she'll remain as herself, and if she can keep that up for a month, a ritual on the event of a red moon can stop the transformation entirely.

There is, obviously, a bit more going on here than the gag of the change, which has Mei terrifying her schoolmates when Ming's overbearing nature—spying on her daughter in class—triggers, in a pop of pink smoke, the transformation. For all of the rollicking action of the red panda trying to hide (running down streets and leaping across rooftops) and the later humor of using the transformation to Mei's benefit, the filmmakers don't lose sight of the fact that their central gimmick has a bigger purpose.

The main thrust of the plot has the four friends selling photo opportunities with and merchandise for the panda as a way to buy tickets to the boy band's upcoming concert—of which Ming disapproves, of course. The real story and more significant conflict, though, are the ways in which Mei is torn between the person she is, wants to be, and is becoming and her sense of loyalty toward Ming, her fear of disappointing her mother, and the type of person all of that parental reinforcement has been guiding—or repressing—her to become.

Mei's friends accept her as she is (The thought of that helps Mei to keep strong emotions at bay, although she has to lie to Ming about that, lest she disappoint her mother), and even the other kids at school come to find the red panda a source of excitement. Ming, though, has lived in denial of her daughter's inevitable change and, witnessing it firsthand, immediately wants to find a way to undo it. There's a generational element to this, as Ming's only apparent source of insecurity is her own mother (voice of Wai Ching Ho), and the film's most touching moment, a respite from the clever business of the climax (turning a disapproving mother into a literal monster, violently interrupting the thing her daughter loves most), involves a mystical flashback. In it, Mei gets to see Ming in an entirely different, wholly sympathetic light.

On the surface, Turning Red is an amusing fantasy, complemented by some slightly cartoon-ish designs and animation. Just beneath that for everyone to comprehend, though, is a smart and earnest allegory about the uncomfortable and, as it feels in moment, sometimes monstrous sensations of growing up.

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