CAST:Rosalie Chiang, Sandra Oh, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Ava Morse,Orion Lee, Hyein Park
DIRECTOR: Domee Shi
BLUF:
Disney and Pixar’s “Turning Red” introduces Mei Lee (voice of Rosalie Chiang), a confident, dorky 13-year-old torn between staying her mother’s dutiful daughter and the chaos of adolescence. Her protective, if not slightly overbearing mother, Ming (voice of Sandra Oh), is never far from her daughter—an unfortunate reality for the teenager. And as if changes to her interests, relationships and body weren’t enough, whenever she gets too excited (which is practically ALWAYS), she “poofs” into a giant red panda!
THE MEAT AND THE POTATOES
A 13-year-old girl named Mei Mei Lee, is torn between family loyalty to extremely authoritarian parents, her own personality, the chaos of puberty and the growing pains of middle school. Along the way, she routinely turns into a giant red panda whenever she gets super excited.
Turning Red is the story of the prevalent culture of parental expectations and intergenerational immigrant ethos of competitiveness and excellence.
Though it talks of very specifically in the Asian community of Toronto, the film could be the story of any immigrant community in North America.
Mei is a nerd who loves Canada; her grade-eight crew of Miriam (Ava Morse), Priya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), and Abby (Hyein Park); the boy band 4*Town; and her parents Ming (Sandra Oh) and Jin Lee (Orion Lee). She has a close relationship with her helicopter mom who wants to control all parts of her daughters life ( so common in Asian families)
But our Mei Mei is a sparkle cuz she knows how to also love herself and is clear in her mind about her goals.
Then one fine day she unexpectedly transforms into a giant red panda and her life changed.
She has come into her matrilineal inheritance, a blessing passed down from a distant warrior ancestor that has in modern times become, as her mother explicitly phrases it, “an inconvenience.”
The panda, which emerges whenever Mei experiences strong emotions, is an unmistakable stand-in for puberty — curvaceous, shaggier, and odorous, though certainly conventional adolescence doesn’t also usually include growing a tail.
Mei is also ogling at a Bieberish classmate and furiously doodling sketches of herself in a clinch with the local mini-mart clerk – how amazingly teenaged is she. You cannot help but fall in love with
Mei she enjoys drawing her favorite 4*Town member as a merman.
It is her beautiful friendship with her mates that helps her overcome her own judgement of herself.
She ends up unfettered, dancing up a storm and posing for pictures and serving as the life of the party and owns her panda self.
Then the foursome realize that they can monetize Mei’s metamorphosis to buy 4*Town tickets and the party starts in Mei Mei’s life.
The shame about her personality comes from Ming, Mei Mei’s mom. She had it instilled in her by Mei’s even more iron-willed grandmother, who eventually shows up with a battalion of aunties for a ceremony meant to seal Mei’s inner beast away forever.
IN THE KNOW
There’s a core of raw, unresolved generational trauma in Turning Red, in the way that Mei feels trapped by her mother’s hopes and dreams for her, and the way that Ming harbors tamped-down resentment about never feeling good enough for her own mother, a pattern she couldn’t help repeating. The Eastern values are neatly pitted against Western permissiveness and individuality.
The animation is picture perfect, the characters are a magnificence and the beauty about Turning Red is finally having our own POC space at Pixar.
It’s a must watch.
