It's not the first time Disney and Pixar have dived firmly into a culturally expansive community - or world, with last year's Encanto being set in Columbia and now Turning Red, being set around one Chinese family in Canada...okay so a lot smaller in scale than Columbia. But that doesn't mean Turning Red doesn't deliver. The film centres itself on pint sized protagonist, 13 year old Meilin Lee, a confident, dorky and often loud spoken teenager who tries her hardest to fight for her perfectionist mother's approval with good grades, perfect attendance and her attitude to always be the good girl. Yet inside she has a big fluffy secret, when her life changes, in more ways than one, her interests, relationships, and whenever she gets too excited, she turns into a big fluffy admittedly very cute red panda. If only puberty was as fluffy and cute for all of us.
Onto the matter at hand, Turning Red - like most Pixar films is a stunningly animated, clever and often funny family comedy, that again like Disney's latest trends is extremely relatable - and not just the puberty bit. We all yearn to be outspoken, and the film isn't afraid to come to terms with that. The film is clever as already pointed out, not so much in it's script, in fact that's the aspect that isn't so clever. But the theming of a dorky and if a little wired teenage girl who just wants to be normal, she has her rambunctious friends for help in that department as they are just as loud and confident as she is. But then that just shows storytelling grandeur that with her friends it's a heartwarming often empowering tale of girl power that is a wonderfully vibrant ode to those awkward pre-teen and teen years. And it's not the first time Disney have peaked highly in that region, but indeed when there's success sometimes there is failure, or in this case script problems. Where the script fails, the film finds itself searching for material, but don't let that put you off.
Turning Red is a bright, shimmering and often funny empowering tale that combines humour and relatable storytelling in beautifully animated fashion and yet again extends Pixar's already long list of deft heart and family friendly films that will remain with you for a long time. Even through the craziness and messiness of puberty, but then all of us want puberty to be just as fluffy, bright and cute as this film shows. 4/5.
Onto the matter at hand, Turning Red - like most Pixar films is a stunningly animated, clever and often funny family comedy, that again like Disney's latest trends is extremely relatable - and not just the puberty bit. We all yearn to be outspoken, and the film isn't afraid to come to terms with that. The film is clever as already pointed out, not so much in it's script, in fact that's the aspect that isn't so clever. But the theming of a dorky and if a little wired teenage girl who just wants to be normal, she has her rambunctious friends for help in that department as they are just as loud and confident as she is. But then that just shows storytelling grandeur that with her friends it's a heartwarming often empowering tale of girl power that is a wonderfully vibrant ode to those awkward pre-teen and teen years. And it's not the first time Disney have peaked highly in that region, but indeed when there's success sometimes there is failure, or in this case script problems. Where the script fails, the film finds itself searching for material, but don't let that put you off.
Turning Red is a bright, shimmering and often funny empowering tale that combines humour and relatable storytelling in beautifully animated fashion and yet again extends Pixar's already long list of deft heart and family friendly films that will remain with you for a long time. Even through the craziness and messiness of puberty, but then all of us want puberty to be just as fluffy, bright and cute as this film shows. 4/5.