Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Turning Red (2022)

IMDb plot summary: A 13-year-old girl named Meilin turns into a giant red panda whenever she gets too excited.
Directed by Domee Shi. Starring Rosalie Chiang, Sandra Oh, and Ava Morse.

Turning Red is the newest Pixar movie, all about a 13-year-old girl named Meilin who learns that she has inherited the curse that affects the women of her family: turning into a red panda whenever her emotions heighten. She has to figure out how to navigate this new development with the help of her family and friends. When I saw the trailer for this movie, I wasn't particularly drawn to it, but I found myself falling in love with it I watched the actual film. This is such a perfect encapsulation of a young girl starting to go through puberty, and using "turning into a giant monster" as a metaphor for teenagerdom seems so perfect. Meilin is an instantly relatable character, as are her friends, as is her mother -- it's just so full of recognizable characters that help to ground the story in universal emotion. This film has a lot in common with Encanto, both telling stories of girls breaking away from their family's dysfunctional patterns, and while Turning Red doesn't have as many great songs, I think I prefer this finale -- it definitely got me teary-eyed like Pixar's best usually do.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Turning Red > Frank
Turning Red > The Game
Turning Red < Castle in the Sky
Turning Red < Jeopardy
Turning Red > Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Turning Red < The Scarlet and the Black
Turning Red > Upside Down
Turning Red < Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Turning Red < Do the Right Thing
Turning Red > The Great Gatsby
Turning Red > Flee
Turning Red > Tell it to the Bees
Final spot: #751 out of 3594, or 79%.

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