By ABBY GROFF
Staff Writer
Turning Red is the newest addition to Pixar’s line of films, and it had some very high expectations, as Pixar rarely ever releases a movie that flops. Similar to Luca (2021), Turning Red isn’t the most emotional, heavy story they’ve written. It’s a cute slice-of-life film that clearly tries catering to an audience that grew up in the early 2000s. This doesn’t mean that the movie lacked that signature Pixar charm; it seems to be going in a new direction.
The story takes place in Toronto, Canada in the year 2002 where Tamagotchis and boy bands are all the craze. Its protagonist, Meilin Lee, is a 13-year-old girl whose main goal in life is to exceed her mother’s expectations. She works hard both in school and in her family’s temple honoring her late ancestors. Unknown to Mei’s knowledge is the fact that her family’s connection to the red panda is way deeper than she could have ever expected. Overnight Mei transforms into a red panda herself as a result of her family’s hereditary curse. Any time she expresses strong emotion (whether it be anger, excitement, or fear) the transformation occurs. Now Mei struggles with having to control herself and “concealing her panda” while still going about her daily routines.
Going back to Mei’s personality prior to her discovery, she is a major workaholic. Her mother worked hard, her mother’s mother, and her mother’s mother before that. Mei was born into a life where any grade less than an A+ is shameful, but she’s okay with that. She doesn’t get a lot of time to herself, or time with friends. Her group of friends realizes this and does anything they can to convince Mei that she should take a more laid-back approach to life. After all, she’s only in eighth grade. She loves to please her mother and do the best she can in every subject. Of course, for the plot’s sake, this changes. Mei’s panda transformation helps her in realizing that it’s okay to let loose. It’s okay to have fun while also maintaining good grades in school. Her mother, Ming, disagrees. She’s afraid of losing the daughter she raised because that’s how she too was raised. This causes the relationship between the two to crumble. Later in the movie, it’s revealed that Ming has had an emotional fallout with her own mother (Mei’s grandmother).
While Turning Red didn’t quite feel like the traditional sob story of a Pixar movie, it’s very clear when they tried integrating that key moment that attempts to get a few teardrops from the audience. During the ritual to cure Mei of the red panda curse, she appears to be in another realm and meets a younger version of her mother there. She is seen sitting on the floor crying about the same issues Mei had to endure: she doesn’t want to let her mother down. Mei leads her mother to the portal they must enter to escape their panda, and on the way, she goes through the process of growing up alongside her daughter. In the end, Mei decides to keep the “curse” as she believes it’s been crucial in the development of her personality.
Last year Disney released the now extremely popular Encanto. It contains many of the same elements and themes, but I believe Turning Red did it better. They took a more realistic approach, all while keeping the film a lot funnier (and personally I’d say more bearable to watch). Mei’s mother didn’t accept her for who she was immediately, unlike Abuela and Mirabel from Encanto. The movie showed the process of Ming’s acceptance and what it took for her to get there. Even during the ending, Ming and Mei still have a dynamic where she is accepting of her daughter but still worries about her well-being.