Oakville’s Sheridan College is, known by many to be, home to a prestigious animation school. But Pixar Animation’s hilarious, if slightly obnoxious, Turning Red is now turning heads because Sheridan grad Domee Shi has become Pixar’s first woman to solely direct one of their films. And it’s a resounding winner.
Both inspired by her time growing up in Toronto and her Chinese background, Shi’s story is partially based on her time as a teenager in the early 2000s. Her canvas is young Meilin (Rosalie Chiang) who, now that she’s 13, must confront a family "quirk" of turning into a nine-foot tall red panda any time she gets overly emotional.
The city of Toronto has two things to celebrate with every ounce of energy it has: the first is how beautifully the city itself is depicted on screen, with all its personality and originality. Seeing landmarks like the CN Tower and Skydome is just as exciting as the vivacity of Toronto’s Chinatown that Meilin calls home, clearly influenced by Shi’s own (non-panda transforming) experiences.
The second thing, and this can’t be overstated, is the masterful direction and design of Shi and her primarily female lead creative team. After winning the Animated Short Oscar for 2018’s Bao, she’s expanded her talent to a feature length film, joining the ranks of great works from Pixar Animation.
Like the best Pixar stories, the true morals and nuance of the movie don’t reveal themselves right away. Yes, struggling to control the "red panda" is a clear allegory for learning to manage the difficult changes of growing up. But there’s a bigger change Meilin must adapt to and that discovery turns out to be the most interesting idea Shi explores. Like Meilin learns, “nothing stays the same forever.”
The four young principal characters of Mei Lin and her friends are quirky beyond description; they exude awkwardness and overconfidence. While it’s sometimes equally awkward to watch, especially in its exaggerated moments, most of the time their interactions are brimming with smart, lightning-fast laughs.
And yet, Shi’s greatest success in crafting the story for Turning Red is her courage to unabashedly share her life experience with a sense of humour. That kind of personality is the most relatable, but that kind of openness requires bravery in the first place.
Sharing embarrassing experiences like this and still finding a way to make them palatable to watch takes a great amount of discipline from any filmmaker, regardless of its in live-action or animated work. That’s what makes it easy to stomach the second-hand embarrassment in the plot.
My only concern in the art style of Turning Red is the same as last summer’s Luca - where this is only the second ever Pixar film where the animation style of its human characters are hyper-stylized and cartoonish instead.
This is a stark difference from the realism that defined human character designs at Pixar for the first 35 years of its history, and frankly, it’s a jarring contrast that makes it harder to appreciate the praise-worthy diversity of characters in the movie.
It’s a sin and poor business decision on Disney’s part to have shifted its theatrical release to streaming on Disney+ instead; they made the switch in December 2021 at the height of the Omicron wave, and as The Batman proved last weekend with its financial success, it’s a decision that could’ve easily (and should have) been reversed.
The good news is that making is available to subscribers without an upcharge means it’s easily accessible to most viewers, making it easy to plan for an at-home movie night. Hopefully this will be the last time a major release, especially the female-directed ones, are subjugated to Disney+ instead of the major profile release it deserves.
If you’d like to support theatres at the same, ordering take-out snacks is a great way to support them. And fresh popcorn is a great way to let your family (of those 10 and up) enjoy the brash, wild fun from Turning Red. It’s unquestionably the most fun movie of the year.
Turning Red
9 out of 10
PG, 1hr 40mins. Animated Family Fantasy Comedy.
Written and Directed by Domee Shi.
Starring Rosalie Chiang, Sandra Oh, Ava Morse, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Hyein Park, Orion Lee, Tristan Allerick Chen and Wai Ching Ho.
Now streaming on Disney+ for subscribers.
On a personal note, one of the annoying boys at school (and principal antagonists) happens to be named Tyler - the same as, yours truly, this movie critic. While a total coincidence, this interestingly continues Disney’s decades-long streak of naming teen antagonists Tyler. (For instance, That’s So Raven? 2010 movie Prom?)
I couldn’t help both rolling my eyes and laughing wildly every time Meilin explodes at his understandably annoying antics. Meilin is right when she observes, among other things, how "Tyler is an insecure jerk-wad." This is an overwhelmingly individualized observation, but amusing nonetheless.
