Turning Red review: A beautifully nuanced portrayal of the tribulations of growing up 

Turning Red, Pixar’s latest project, is a simple and adventurous but loaded metaphoric tale of a teenaged Chinese-Canadian protagonist called Mei. The animated feature, directed by Domee Shi, dropped on Disney+ today and it seems to be a whilwind ride into the life of a young Mei who is riddled with her emerging adolescence and faced with teenage problems which she is struggling to cope with.

Mei one day discovers that she has a special power, which is both a blessing and a curse. She gets transformed into a giant red panda when she is stressed or agitated, and turns back to her real self after calming down. This changes everything, turning her life upside down and altering her relationships until she emerges as a liberated individual.

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Struggles of adolescence

Meilin Lee is apparently like any typical 13-year-old girl, except she isn’t. She loves to have fun, dance around, have crushes, and swoon over a certain boy band along with her cohort of weird but loyal besties. She is also a bright student who manages straight As in school, much to her mother's pleasure.

Mei’s mother is a stern and overprotective figure who smothers Mei with affection and stifles her with her overbearing nature. To her, Mei is the perfect child, a bright scholar and a hard-working daughter helping her mother run their temple business. Little does she know that Mei is into things that she abhors. To please her, Mei had kept a part of herself hidden, which soon comes out, leading to a fight between the mother and daughter.

For most of us, Mei's mother can be a very relatable figure. Adolescence is a tricky time. With raging hormones and pressure from all spheres of life, teenage years are simultaneously the best and the worst phase of one's life. And it does not get easier with strict parents who fail to understand this and come down heavily on the child.

Turning Red has done an amazing job in portraying this. Mei’s struggle with her mother is too familiar. Here lies the credit of the Pixar movie for portraying the nuances of a complex mother-daughter relationship in the context of a sensitive time in a child's life, which is all too familiar to most of us.

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Mei's gift

However, Mei's mother is not the biggest of Mei's concerns. It turns out that Mei has a fantastical capability. She turns into a red panda every time she is agitated or troubled. This transformation is not unique to Mei, and is in fact a characteristic trait present in the women of her lineage for a long, long time.

There is a rare ritual which, when performed on a certain night, can help Mei get rid of the panda and Mei is looking forward to getting rid of the curse. However, much to her dismay, the ritual day is coinciding with a concert by her favorite boy band, which she surely cannot miss.

What now? Does she manage to get rid of the panda, or does she pass on the opportunity to see her favorite boys perform on stage?

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Verdict of Turning Red

Vibrant, funny, and moving, Turning Red tells a story that is deeply relatable. The characters have been imbued with a lot of depth and dimension, which makes for an engaging story, and the short runtime, within which the story has been neatly compressed, ensures it does not bore. The coming-of-age film tackles issues of immigration, acculturation, adolescence, and growing up and finding one's place in the world, with much detail.

Turning Red is a metaphor for puberty and the trials and tribulations of teenage life. Though it may not be Pixar’s best feature and the animation could have been better, it tells a meaningful story and is entertaining and thought provoking at the same time, for both young and old viewers alike.

Catch Turning Red, now streaming on Disney+.