Even before the panda-monium begins, the film is a hilarious, life-affirming treat.Īnother of its surprises is that when Meilin does transmogrify into a huge, furry animal with claws and a tail, her parents aren't too bothered. Turning Red recalls everything from Teen Wolf to The Incredible Hulk, from My Neighbour Totoro to Céline Sciamma's Petite Maman, but it is still refreshingly new – in its rounded characters, its multi-cultural urban setting, its pastel colouring, its speedy pacing, and its exuberant tone. And, like Meilin, the film itself is beamingly confident in its own identity. The director and co-writer, Domee Shi (who made the Oscar-winning short film Bao), and her co-writer, playwright Julia Cho, have drawn from their own childhoods to create a recognisable yet original heroine. But Meilin is a bright, sociable bundle of energy, who is proud to have posters that say "work", "listen", and "study" above her desk, and who gets on well with her happily married parents. Yes, there is a boy in her class who annoys her, and her touchingly loyal gang of friends would rather she spent more time at karaoke, and less time sweeping out the family's temple. She isn't being bullied, and she has no trouble fitting in. Parents who watch it with young children may do some turning red of their own, but it's a startlingly brave approach – and it's just one of the ways in which Turning Red keeps being funnier, cleverer, more honest, and more progressive than you might expect.Īnother example is that the film's heroine, Meilin Lee (voiced with sassy gusto by Rosalie Chiang), is a Chinese-Canadian schoolgirl in early 2000s Toronto, but she doesn't have the insecurities or frustrated dreams of Moana, Anna, Elsa, Rapunzel, Katie Mitchell and almost every other young woman in a 21st-Century cartoon. Yes, this is the first Disney cartoon to talk openly about periods. Moments after the heroine cries out in distress, her mother asks, "Did the red peony bloom," and then bursts into the bathroom with a stack of sanitary pads and painkillers. Can you spot the subtext? As soon as you hear the premise of Turning Red, it seems obvious that it's making a veiled, Disney-approved allusion to puberty, and that it will go on to hint at this subject in subtle, ambiguous ways.
Understandably, she is upset by this sudden change, so she hides in the bathroom, revolted by her new body hair and the smell wafting from her armpits. In Pixar's latest animation, a 13-year-old girl wakes up one morning to find that she has metamorphosed into a giant red panda.
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