Turning Red
One of the hardest things about growing up is pleasing your parents. When you’re young, you’ll basically do what they want to do, because you’re too young to really do anything else. At the same time, though, you’ll be making friends, and starting to come into your own personality. Once you reach a certain age, that tension is going to break, and eventually, your individuality is going to take you further away from your parents. At that point, you both either have to accept the change and adapt, or it’ll break the relationship.
Mei Lee (Rosalie Chiang) is at that point in Pixar’s wonderful new movie, “Turning Red,” and it’s everything the best Pixar films represent- wonderful characters, enormous heart, charming animation and a strong theme. It’s been a while since the studio has been clicking on all cylinders quite like this. Mei Lee is 13-year-old girl who’s been the apple in her mother’s eye, and has given herself over to helping her parents run the temple they operate. Their family worships the Red Panda, who helped their ancestors get through a difficult time in their history. But Mei Lee also has friends and her own interests, like the pop band 4*Town. She’s also at that age where she’s going through changes. Needless to say, turning into a red panda when she gets too excited was not one she expected.
The metaphor in Domee Shi’s film, which she co-wrote with Julia Cho, should be crystal clear to anyone with a basic knowledge of human biology, but the film is as much about identity, the challenging dynamics between family life and personal life, and mothers and daughters as it is a creative way to explore biological changes in teenage girls. The film is set in 2002, during the boy band boom, so Shi is drawing on her own experiences, and that feeling is palpable throughout the film. Mei Lee might be the most endearing main character we’ve been given by Pixar since Sully and Mike in “Monsters Inc.”; it’s impossible not to empathize with her, and she’s a character that could have very easily tilted into annoying, but she’s just endearing. Even if we didn’t go through her exact struggles, we can no doubt relate to them, and maybe find them reflected in our own lives. For me, it was in my late 20s, when I realized that the life my parents had was not the one I had, and how comfortable I became with that truth. There’s a moment where Mei Lee has to make a choice that not only changes her, but causes a ripple effect with her family. That’s scary, but it takes trust on all sides, and seeing the way Mei Lee earns it, it’s one of those heart-wrenching moments Pixar just knows how to pull off.
Stylistically, I don’t know many films that feel more different than what we’re used to from Pixar (“Soul” and “The Incredibles” are the only ones that come to mind), but it’s another personal touch from Shi that makes the film feel special. The music in the film, whether you’re talking about the bubblegum pop songs by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell or Ludwig Göransson’s score, captures the heart of what this film is as well as any soundtrack has for the studio. For the most part, Pixar films have kind of become more of an obligation for me to see because of my past appreciation of their work than an event. “Turning Red” flips that switch back for me, and I didn’t see that coming at all.
