Yes! The time has finally come to catch up on the big animations of the year, thanks to Disney+. Of the three that came out of Pixar and Disney last year – Raya and the Last Dragon, Luca, and Encanto – I had Luca with the edge, although it was a very tight race. What I’m trying to say is that Pixar is still the paramount place for animation for me, and I’m expecting great things from this story about a girl who turns into a red panda.
Chilling in 2002, Meilin (voiced by Rosalie Chiang) excels at her schoolwork, and strives to balance a home life being dutiful to her mother, and a social life with her friends. There are things that she cannot tell her mother about, like her obsession with the teen heartthrob boyband 4 Town, but finding that balance between her personas is what being a young woman is all about… After an embarrassing incident at an imitation 7-Eleven, Meilin wakes the next morning to discover that she has transformed into a giant red panda! Her time has come, as she discovers that it’s a condition of her family line, that all the women on her mother’s side go through this transformation at a certain time when puberty strikes. The red panda can be contained if calm, but the plan is to wait until the red moon at the end of the month, where a ritual can extract the red panda from a young lady, and capture it in a chosen token. But for Meilin, what starts out as a horrible inconvenience, soon becomes a fun gimmick amongst her friends, gaining her popularity, and a way to make some serious cash – this red panda may not be so bad after all.
I’ve seen memes on how Disney’s new age villains are just the plight of dealing with family trauma, and after finally seeing Turning Red, I fully acknowledge the trend. Pixar has always been able to tug at those heartstrings, but this movie gets me empathising with Meilin through fright – when Meilin’s mother Ming Lee (voiced by Sandra Oh) takes those drawings into the Daisy Mart and makes a scene; I’m shook. It’s then that Meilin seems to internalise the despair of being exposed, and the red panda first shows up. I took the cuddly fluffy as a metaphor for feeling ugly inside, and then a representation for depression, especially through the masterful scene where Meilin’s adorable friends come around to visit her, and their love and acceptance quell Meilin’s anguish within – it’s a great metaphor, even if it’s tough to watch. Then even after it’s explained where the red panda is coming from, the quick poofs of pink smoke in and out of the condition are still not played as funny, but as a real tragedy. But Meilin finds a way through it, and I found the narrative sort’ve moves similarly to Luca in that one tiny action leads to the next motivation, with a deep understanding of cause and effect (unlike the Me Time movie I just watched, that takes sharp turns, and more like the revered plotting and pacing that make The Simpsons or Seinfeld absolute classics). Turning Red also has the upper hand on movies like C’mon C’mon, for its representation of childhood temperaments, and Encanto, for its exploration into themes of generational expectations, and the resulting riffs through mental traumas – to elaborate, from the outside, it’s clear to us that seeing 4 Town in concert isn’t as important as the life-altering panda ritual on the same night, but the movie relays Meilin’s perception really well, so we understand why she thinks it so. And the inbounding friction between Meilin and her mother is shown to exist beyond this mystical condition, and had to come to a head eventually, even outside Meilin’s decision that she would like her panda to stay. Seeing Ming Lee’s relationship with her own mother Wu (voiced by Madame Gao herself, Wai Ching Ho), shows a pattern of smothering and internalization that’s definitely in Meilin’s best interest to break before it damages her relationship with her mother, or limits her future. And I’m sure if I were a woman too, there might be more interesting insights to glean, being explored in Turning Red too, concerning the commencement of menstruation and societies expectations on women – I look forward to reading into them.
But, I have a problem with the third act, that starts with a rushed decision to keep the red panda, and the resulting ramifications. Meilin may want to keep her form, but we don’t know, and she doesn’t know, how potentially dangerous that could be. It’s not like there isn’t an entire gaggle of women who understand the history and/or have gone through the experience for themselves to ask for clarity 🤷♂️ All that we have been warned about is that changing in and out of the panda too often makes the condition harder to control. I don’t understand it… And then Ming Lee goes gargantuan psycho and it’s like, there you go – that’s the sort’ve catch I was worried about 🤦♂️ To be honest, this becomes the same problem I had with Coco, but on a larger scale – Pixar is nailing bringing us well rounded complex moral quandaries, but botching the final execution, turning the answer into a simple childish problem of good versus bad. No wonder Ming Lee hates the red panda, fears the red panda, when her behemoth is a lot harder to maintain. The challenge becomes less than a matter of mother and daughter needing to reconcile their different chosen paths, and that times have changed, because their equations were never the same – maybe that’s part of the point; social acceptance being unique for older generations may not have been as tolerant as we have it today, but I still question the movie’s Godzilla-lite execution. At least with Onward, which I think the consensus is it’s one of Pixar’s more generic movies, it has that sweet pinnacle that makes the journey worth it to the moment, where here, everyone transforms into action like it’s Shazam! and it’s all a bit silly. And the cringiest thing Pixar has done in a while is give the mother panda a ‘Karen’ haircut – I’m sure some people will find it hilarious, but I’ll concede it’s tongue-in-cheek at best.
Shockingly, I wasn’t overimpressed by the animation like I normally absolutely always am either. Wu looks like the puppet caricature of Kim Jong-Il in Team America: World Police, and that’s not just coz she’s Asian, but in the shininess and proportions of the character too. I’d hope that Pixar aren’t skimping on their technology, advancing animation with every movie, just because most of their projects are currently going straight to Disney+ – that would be a tragedy. But I was impressed by how the movie easily inserts peoples of all cultures into the background and on the streets in this movie – I’m talking about, but not limiting to, the school security guard with his turban, and the random pedestrians on the street with hijabs. It just makes sense, and it makes the streets of this animated city feel very homely, also reminding me of the warmth in Hey Arnold! It’s how it should’ve always been, and it’s a shame that it’s noteworthy to me in 2022; but we’re getting there, and well done Pixar. And of course, I appreciate the 2002-yness of it all – the technology (like the Tamagotchi) but also the jokes, to Meilin’s dancing introduction at the beginning. I’m not the first to say it, but most of us who were teenagers in 2002 probably have kids of our own now, and may be watching Disney+ as a family – Pixar has always offered more than most to its adult presence, and this movie totally capitalises on the nostalgia too.
Pixar has now done a transformation into a bear (Brave), and a red panda, which can often be mistaken for a bear. It’s a weird kink to have, but you do you, and you know what’s next, right? A plot Down Under where a Shazza turns into a koala – make it happen, Pixar, round out your fuzzy trilogy! 🐨 For me, there’s so much to like within Turning Red, but the third act hijinks are an initial letdown, and more so as it feels like a problem I’ve highlighted before. Ultimately, Turning Red is different enough at delivering a familiar message about being yourself, and embrace all parts of you – Meilin’s father gives a tender insight at the end, in a quiet one-on-one with his maturing daughter. Oh, and if Luca is truly an underhanded solidarity to the budding gay community, then the furries are going to love this! Ah, good luck to them – it’s sweet enough for everybody.
3.5
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