Alerte rouge

I can recognize myself in a lot of Mei's experiences and learned something new about them as well. There are not a lot of movies that normalize other significant parts about puberty like periods and understanding your parents, but this one does and they do it perfectly. Even for those watching who cannot relate to Mei's experience, it's a great watch to see where she and other girls may be coming from.

It's 2002 Toronto. Meilin is a 13 year-old Chinese-Canadian girl on the verge of adulthood. Her family cares for their temple honorable their ancestor who turned into a red panda to defend her family. One morning, she wakes up to find herself transformed into a red panda.

This is a coming-of-age story from Pixar. It's fun. I love the characters. There is a realism in these characters. They feel very authentic. Aside from the supernatural, this is really a story of a girl trying to find her way through puberty and dealing with her mother-daughter relationship. There are no big name actors other than Sandra Oh which does give this a feeling of non-Hollywood. The Toronto locations are also part of that. This has plenty of fun while dealing with some real tween issues.

The idea, the metaphor is not bad, coming of age or rather turning red (and honor your parents but stay yourself). Pixar production and graphics as good as ever. What is missing in the latest productions, in my opinion, is the genius of Pixar. They seem closer and closer to a typical Disney production, beautiful and musical but not brilliant.

This decline, I fear, may be due to an excess of production wanted by the Disney company, and I understand it but, there is a big difference between a tailor's shop and an industrial distribution of clothing.

Although I am an adult (and perhaps for this reason), I loved Pixar because in the past its target has never been solely that of children, they have included adults. Outstanding Pixar movies like "Wall-e", "Up", "Inside / Out", "Coco", "Finding Nemo" and Dory, also "Soul", even more than the still wonderful "The Incredibles", "Toy Story", "Ratatouille" , "Cars" etc. They bring with them messages, often moving, that do not concern only our children but also adults. Indeed, some messages are not immediately understandable by a very child / adolescent audience but they leave the fun to them anyway. In fact liked these movies as much as my son did.

This latest movie as well as "Brave", to a lesser extent also "Luca", show a slight flattening to Disney standards which I'm not saying are bad but they lack that typical modern tell and sneaky, Pixar genius.

Interesting. I thought my 14 year old & her 13 yr old friend would have loved this movie. We waited for it to come out and they had a movie night. 3/4 of the way through they were bored and switched to the Nintendo switch. They said they didn't really "get" what the point of the story was and they lost interest. Head scratcher. I need to watch it myself but if the target audience don't enjoy it - is it really for them?

My oldest daughter was thrilled as we watched "Turning Red", as she really could relate to the main character, Mei and her struggles with the emergence of puberty. It's something that might make many men uncomfortable...but it IS a part of life that has long been ignored in movies. So, while the film is clearly a metaphor for a girl's first period, it's pretty amazing that any film would talk about this in any way....and my advice to guys is just accept it and enjoy the story. As a father with two daughters, I got over my fears of female sexuality and puberty long ago....and like the film seems to say, it's NOT a curse or something that should be a taboo.

Mei Lin is an 8th grader whose transition to puberty is MUCH worse than she could have imagined. This is because party of puberty is also the onset of a family curse (or gift...depending how you look at it). What is the curse? Well, when women from this Chinese-Canadian family lose their emotional control, they literally become giant red pandas. Now red pandas are about the cutest animals on the planet, but a 7 foot (or larger) red panda is difficult to explain!! The film is about Mei Lin's struggle...as well as how her mother and extended family also struggle with this beast within them.

As you'd expect from Pixar, the animation is lovely and the film looks pretty. I also appreciated the daring plot. My only regret is that the first half of the story is great...the last half is a bit formulaic...especially the big confrontation scene between Mei Lin and her mother at the stadium. It's not at all bad....just a bit disappointing. Overall, it's a film girls will adore and guys will like IF they let themselves appreciate and aren't afraid to see a film about girls' first period.