Andrea’s film review – Turning Red

Turning Red ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review by Andrea Carnevali

A 13-year-old girl named Meilin turns into a giant red panda whenever she is overcome with emotion. Available to watch on Disney Plus.

Like many of Pixar best films, Turning Red is an ambitious, clever and beautifully realized project, which at its best works on all sorts of different levels for each different age group.

It won’t take a great detective to see the story of a little girl who turns into a big red panda whenever she’s overcome with emotions as a not-too-veiled metaphor about puberty and all the changes a girl’s body goes throughout during adolescence.

The film may be set within the context of a Chinese-Canadian family living in Toronto, still attached to their own roots and deep traditions, but that feeling of being different, weird, often embarrassed by our parents and misunderstood is something universal we can all share, whatever our sex and background.

Pixar and Disney once again must be commended for bringing different sensibilities and culture to their mainstream products, as well as mature subject matters, which have never been represented before.

I was amazed to find explicit references to girls having their periods or boxes of pads and even a mention of the “red peony”. Even if most of that will go over most little boys’ heads or young children (my son was completely oblivious to all, much more taken by the story mutation into a red panda), it’s still an incredibly refreshing, brave and rather revolutionary inclusion to have in a film mainly aimed at families and children.

The film is ultra-fast, full of eccentricities and probably a bit too hyper as if it had been injected with a little bit too much sugar, (and possibly too much for a middle-age man like me), but it’s by design and not by chance: it is clearly from the point of view of a teenage girl whose hormones are exploding inside.

Director Domee Shi (who had previously directed the award winning short Bao for Pixar) peppers the Turning Red with clever and quirky touches throughout, something we’ve grown accustomed to see in the Pixar filmography, but I couldn’t help noticing how in its third act as it became a more conventional action-driven story with an over-the top “battle” suited more to a superheroes fare rather than a progressive story like the one we had been promised, eventually losing its focus, its central metaphor and all the beautiful puberty parallels.

It left a lot of questions unanswered and the final messages got too tangled up and confused, making it a less satisfying experience than the one I was hoping for.
A commendable and brave effort nonetheless.

Andrea Carnevali is a Bafta winning film maker who lives in Chiswick.

Turning Red is available to watch on Disney Plus.

See all Andrea’s film reviews here: Film reviews by Andrea Carnevali

See also: Jessica Bloom’s review of new fiction published in March

See all the latest stories: Chiswick Calendar News & Features

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