Film: Turning Red

 

GENRE: Animated, Coming of Age
RATING: PG for thematic material and suggestive content
RUNTIME: 1 hour and 40 minutes
PLATFORM: Disney+
STARRING: Sandra Oh (Killing Eve, Grey’s Anatomy, The Chair)
Rosalie Chiang (newcomer); Ava Morse (Ron’s Gone Wrong)
DIRECTOR: Domee Shi (Bao – Pixar animated short)
WRITERS: Shi (Bao); Julia Cho (Fringe, Halt and Catch Fire)
PLOT: A 13-year-old girl turns into a giant red panda when emotional.    

FULL DISCLOSURE: I love Pixar so I gave this a chance.

STORY STUFF: It was a cute story but definitely not one of Pixar’s best. I guess I was unable to relate to a thirteen-year-old Asian girl. Pixar is usually able to give me a strong emotional response and maybe a tear or two but that didn’t happen at all in this film. I think Inside Out captured some of the overall themes better. I liked that it took place in 2002 so they could play off the boy band craze but I found it bizarre that they were buying tickets to the concert from the venue on the night of the performance. Have the creators never been to a concert before? Either the characters should be buying expensive scalped tickets or this band is incredibly unpopular to still have tickets available. I was also surprised that Meilin keeps calling people jerkface and other names, I wonder how parents feel about that.

ACTING STUFF: I enjoyed the voice work of the parents; Oh adds loads of humour, sternness and emotion into her motherly role. Orion Lee adds a sense of calm as the father. Chiang get a bit too extreme at times as Meilin but that fits the story somewhat. I was disappointed that some of her friends were so one-note. Morse as Miriam is the exception as she is the most dynamic of the group but chill Priya (Maitreya Ramakrishnan) and angrily hyper Abby (Hyein Park) got too repetitive. Of all the students I’ve taught over the years, I can’t think of anyone matching Abby’s persona (thank goodness).

ARTISTIC STUFF: I like the fact that Canada was featured heavily in this film (unfortunately it was Toronto). They had the Tim Horton’s, authentic Canadian currency, multi-cultural citizens and more. Because it’s Pixar, the animation is top notch. The boy band songs and concert intro was right on the money. You can tell that the creators had a lot of fun putting this all together.

VERDICT: Three stars out of five
SEE IT IF: You like Pixar and have Disney+ and a girl.
UPCOMING REVIEW:  Remaining Oscar contenders