‘Turning Red’ Roars as a Brilliantly Furry and Moving Fable About Puberty

Alci Rengifo

It’s nearly always a given that family entertainment is geared at appealing to families. On a more commercial level, it’s also code for fun distractions specifically for the kids. Once in a while we get filmmakers who understand these expectations and then subvert them with great imagination. “Turning Red” is a Disney/Pixar animated film that features the studios’ expected high quality of family fun, yet it’s much more. Writer-director Domee Shi has crafted a wonderful fantasy that feels like a true, personal statement from an artist. Undoubtedly there was quality control going on, as tends to be the case with any major studio production. But this film never feels like it. It’s always alive both visually and with the director’s deeply intimate vision. “Turning Red” isn’t another plastic fable about family. Shi’s tale is about the need to balance freedom with roots. 

The movie begins with an instant sense of millennial nostalgia. Meilin (Rosalie Chiang), known as “Mei” to friends and family, is the Chinese-Canadian daughter of good but strict parents in 2002 Toronto. She’s now 13-years-old but remains the smothered child of her perfectionist mom, Ming (Sandra Oh). Mei helps Ming care for a family temple which is also a tourist attraction. At school, Mei is of course a straight-A student and a rabid fan of the pop boy band 4*Town with friends Abby (Hyein Park), Miriam (Ava Morse) and Priya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan). Hormones are also starting to awaken. One night, Mei makes the fateful decision of doodling a cute boy in her notebook. When Ming finds the drawings, she goes into a rage and publicly humiliates Mei. The enraged 13-year-old then wakes up to discover she’s transformed into a giant red panda. Understandably shocked and confused, Mei figures out that the furry beast manifests itself when she’s feeling intense emotions. When she’s calm, Mei returns to her regular self, now with red hair. To her further astonishment, her parents reveal how this is not shocking to them because it’s part of an old family tradition involving an ancestor’s power to become a red panda in order to protect the family. 

Over the years Pixar has firmly established itself as a studio keen on releasing films that reach for richer dramatic territory. Titles like “Soul” and “Coco” have championed cultural diversity while also exploring impressively mature themes. “Turning Red” continues this trend with a dynamic style. Shi directed the Oscar-winning Pixar short “Bao,” a real heart-tug about motherhood. Her screenplay with Julia Cho for “Turning Red” is a much bolder, rebellious work. The key theme is one rarely explored in American animated movies. Mei is experiencing the changes that come with adolescence under the gaze of Ming, who represents the kind of conservative, strict parenting style common to Asian communities but usually stereotyped as “tiger moms.” Of course, overbearing conservative parents can be found anywhere, which gives the film universal appeal. Some moments play more like dark comedy inspired by nightmarish memories than the usual, Disney giggles. Ming not only erupts over Mei’s doodles, she drags her to the store where the drawn boy works and berates him in front of a mocking crowd. At school Mei is alerted by her friends that Ming is spying on her from across the school grounds. Ming isn’t a cruel or evil mother. She’s just set in her ways and is baffled at why Mei wouldn’t want her around every waking minute. Naturally, Ming also finds boy bands to be crass and trashy, so of course Mei has no chance of being allowed to attend the 4*Town concert.

The red panda Mei transforms into then becomes a brilliant, fantastical allegory for the need to break free. The design of the panda is both cute and bestial. Mei could be intimidating and is terrified at first. Yet she soon discovers that her classmates adore her transformation and soon wants selfies, to the point of paying (which could help fund the concert outing). Abby, Miriam and Priya have no qualms about their friend’s plight and instantly accept her situation, which helps calm the moods that might generate the crimson bear. “Turning Red” not only captures middle school life, it does so with a more truthful tone than the usual Pixar flick. Mei and her friends (literally) drool over boys but also feel the shyness of grappling with hormones. The main bully on campus, Tyler (Tristan Allerick Chen) is a vicious little monster who might soften up when he needs a favor from Mei’s panda persona. Other themes rarely touched upon in Pixar movies are cheerfully used. When Mei first transforms and panics into hiding in the bathroom, Ming assumes it must be her first menstrual cycle. Mei’s more soft-tempered dad reveals how in younger days, Ming had fights with her own mother because she didn’t approve of her daughter’s choice for a husband. 

Disney’s decision to stream “Turning Red” instead of giving it a proper theatrical release is both a plus for viewers who can watch it instantly at home, but also a loss for moviegoers who could have basked in its imagery on a big screen. This movie moves with the energy and colors common to anime combined with the Pixar aesthetic. The big red panda is fun to follow around as Mei clumsily dashes through neighborhoods and rooftops. Shi also has a lot of fun looking back at nostalgic aesthetics from the early aughts in the characters’ clothes or their use of flip phones and video cameras. Even 4*Town is a hilarious wink at the pop boy bands of the time, such as NSYNC, Backstreet Boys and O-Town. They are given a voice by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell, who write songs that could have been chart toppers in 2002. Zoomers cannot comprehend the eyes that well when Mei’s friend gives her a burned mix CD as a gift. The third act crescendos with a Godzilla moment that is one of the best recent representations of dealing with a controlling mom.

The sense of shame and need to rebel that Mei experiences can be relatable to viewers in Asian homes, Middle Eastern homes or just plain old Southern Baptist living rooms in many corners of America. But as a statement from a Chinese-Canadian writer-director, “Turning Red” is also a great celebration of growing diversity in the Disney/Pixar roster. When we talk about diversity the emphasis tends to be on representation. Shi never compromises in depicting a Chinese-Canadian experience with fine detail. But watch this movie because it’s a wonderful experience. It isn’t just fun, it also speaks to what it means to be close to your loved ones while discovering your own autonomy. On a feminine level it celebrates young women who learn how there’s nothing wrong with dealing with changing feelings and bodies. Maybe as we get older we also forget what we all went through. In one of the movie’s most powerful scenes, Mei comes across a memory of her mother as a young girl once feeling the pressure from her own parents to be perfect. This is a delightful fable about discovering yourself, while warning the parents that being loving can also mean knowing when to back off.

“Turning Red” begins streaming March 11 on Disney+.