In 2019, Domee Shi won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for her Pixar short, Bao. Three years later, her feature directorial debut is arriving on Disney+ with Turning Red, an animated coming-of-age fantasy comedy about Meilin Lee (Rosalie Chang), a 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian student who discovers that she becomes a giant red panda whenever she gets too excited. Upon discovering this condition, she must navigate her way through being a teenager with her best friends as they try to get concert tickets for their favorite boy band, 4*Town.
The best quality that animated films offer is that they can provide whimsical, fantastical stories that a live-action movie cannot. Regardless, this is one of the most unconventional animated films to date. Keep in mind this is coming from a studio that made a movie about a rat puppeteering a garbage boy to become the top chef at a French restaurant. Pixar has made some weird films before, but this one may somehow take the cake as their most absurd idea yet, all executed with a solid amount of charm.
Pixar movies each have a unique style based on their director, and Shi injects this movie with a ton of personality and energy. For example, the film opens with Meilin breaking the fourth wall and providing exposition by speaking to the audience. Turning Red quickly establishes itself as a quirky film with an original voice behind it, and you can feel how personal the story is. Like Meilin, Shi is a Chinese-Canadian who grew up in Toronto. The screenplay co-written by her and Julia Cho is meant to tell a relatable story with a diverse group of friends with fun, dorky personalities. As a result, the story and Meilin’s emotions can strike a chord with many.
This is a coming-of-age story like no other, featuring themes on puberty and womanhood. It utilizes a distinctive take on the Pixar formula of taking an absurd concept and grounding it in universal human emotions. Due to the specificity of the time period and the interests of the lead characters, the movie may feel a bit niche. However, it is ultimately a loving, honest representation of growing up in Asian culture down to the details about parental respect and the handheld digital pets of the early 2000s.
Unfortunately, the writing can also hold the movie back at times. Turning Red was set in 2002, and it feels like it came out at that time with its nostalgic energy. The film’s second act features the characters banding together to raise enough money to buy concert tickets, which feels like a familiar story for a studio known for unfamiliar premises. The film has its clichés and a predictable character arc for our protagonist, leading to a strange combination of a story that both plays it safe and swings for the fences.
The final act, in particular, is perhaps the most bewildering half hour of cinema in Pixar history. The places Shi takes the story and characters are so mind-boggling that the film becomes comical, intentional or not. The movie can be on-the-nose about its themes and outlandish in its execution. Nevertheless, you have to respect the audacity of Shi, a filmmaker unafraid to write an unoriginal flavor for Pixar. Out of everything I was anticipating to see from a Pixar movie, a giant red panda twerking was admittedly one of the last things I expected or wanted. And yet, here we are, with easily one of the weaker Pixar entries, but an entertaining movie nevertheless.
SCORE: 6/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 6 equates to “Decent.” It fails to reach its full potential and is a run-of-the-mill experience
