Turning Red: a darling movie you'll appreciate

If you think you know what the movie is going to be about based off the previews, think again. 

The movie is a coming of age film, about a girl named Mei Mei, from Toronto, who discovers one morning that she inherited the curse of becoming a red panda (symbolic of waking up one morning and realizing your body is changing). Mei Mei realizes that she can control it when she is calm and composed, and that really only happens when she's around her friends from school. But of course she can't be calmed and composed all the time, especially when she's around her mom who puts pressure on her to be her perfect little girl. As the movie goes on, she learns she loves the panda side of herself and wants it to be apart of her, and she has a choice to make - get rid of it to make life the way it's supposed to be, or keep it because it's a new part of her she wants to learn more about and use. 

During the movie I had to go online to figure out what this movie was really all about, and the more I learned, the more I came to appreciate the movie. The writer of the film was actually the same lady who wrote the Oscar nominated short called "Bao," (the one about the mom who dreams her son turned into a dumpling). This movie is a bit auto-biographical in that her panda is her crazy feelings and emotions, and coming from an Asian family, she was always pressured to keep that wild side of her in check. Personally, I love it when the creators of the movies put themselves into it, and I appreciated the Asian animation influence in it, and Asian family traditions. 

If you need more of a reason to watch this movie, the film is set in 2002 and she did a great job pulling out some nostalgia. I also can't believe I'm at that phase of my life where the past is my past. She features everything from Giga Pets, the Cha Cha Slide, boy bands, choker necklaces and those weird butterfly clips, and it was fun to recognize those small pieces. 

For my review, I would give it a B. It was a cute movie but nothing that I haven't seen before when it comes to a coming of age storyline, except the red pandas, and the very entertaining mother daughter red panda fight at the end. Honestly the thing I thought about most while watching this movie is, "I really hope my little girl has friends like that as she grows up." My almost four-year-old loved the movie and laughed at it quite a bit, so have fun watching it as an adult who made it through 2002 and puberty, and let your kids enjoy the fun animation and very anime influenced moments.