Voices of Rosalie Chiang, Sandra Oh, Ava Morse, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Hye-In Park, James Hong, Wai Ching Ho

(Okay Film)

Meilin Lee is a 13-year-old girl in Toronto (2002) with a lot of personality. This sometimes puts her at odds with her strict mother who, for example, sees Meilin’s favorite boy-band, 4 Town, as “gyrating music.” Going through changes is par for the course with puberty, but Meilin soon discovers the extra burden of transforming into a giant red panda whenever she gets emotional. Turning Red has a lovely, hybrid (maybe a cross between 3-D animation and Japanese hand-drawn) art style and a charming, frenetic energy in its storytelling. The red panda is the obvious draw here and its as cute and cuddly as advertised. The music by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell is catchy and serves its purpose perfectly. What’s missing, whether the cast and crew or angry fans on Twitter want to acknowledge it, is any originality in its themes or depth. This film is apparently almost expressly made by a female creative team and yet they’ve told the exact same story as Brave (2012). A maturing daughter rebels against her domineering mother resulting in the mother transforming into a colossal beast before they both realize how much they love each other and compromise. Turning Red is not unique beyond its style, it’s humorous but never funny, and it’s very obvious in its storytelling. It coasts on its cuteness. Telling a story about a different culture or about women or girls isn’t what makes a movie limiting. Being mediocre makes this movie limiting.

-Walter Tyrone Howard-

-10-