You won’t have a hard time rooting for Meilin “Mei” Lee in “Turning Red.”
Voiced by Rosalie Chiang, the heroine of the newest film from Disney-owned Pixar Animation Studios — a reasonably entertaining and fairly unusual romp making its debut this week on Disney+ instead of theaters — is a hard-working, confident and fairly nerdy 13-year-old girl growing up in early 2000s Toronto.
She’s juggling school commitments — her studies, the flute, etc. — with time spent helping her mom, Ming (Sandra Oh), with the family-run temple in the city’s Chinatown neighborhood, which is important to her, too.
Oh, and she’s also starting to figure out who she is AND expressing that as best she can.
“I know,” she tells us, “it’s a lot. But this is grade eight. I don’t have time to mess around.”
Mei (voiced by Rosalie Chiang), 13, is starting to figure out who she is in “Turning Red.” (Courtesy of Disney/Pixar)
Rooting for Mei is one thing; wholly identifying with her is another. How much you relate to her, in fact, may depend on whether you, too, once made the transition from girlhood to womanhood. (Obviously, roughly half of us have not.)
That potentially awkward journey is a prime concern of this feature debut from director Domee Shi, who helmed Pixar’s 2018 Academy Award-winning short, “Bao.”
It takes us on that trek both literally and metaphorically, as Mei begins to notice boys in a new way and must cope with a very uncomfortable situation — that when she becomes emotional she transforms into a huge red panda.
This rather significant inconvenience first happens after Ming embarrasses Mei in front of a group of her peers by berating a boy named Devon (Addie Chandler). The boy, Ming believes, must have done something untoward to cause Mei to make such suggestive drawings of the two of them in her notebook. (He didn’t. She just suddenly looked upon him the way her friends already had been.)
After Mei goes to bed upset and wakes up completely panda-fied and VERY red, she locks herself in the bathroom, causing Ming to believe her daughter merely is experiencing a female rite of passage. Mom springs into action, getting the supplies she believes her daughter needs, while Mei desperately tries to keep her on the other side of the door.
Before long, though, Ming learns instead that Mei has undergone a transformation experienced by herself and other young women in her family, dating to a highly honored ancestor. Ming expected this day to come, as well.
While Mei’s transformation is temporary, she can expect to undergo it whenever her emotions run high — not exactly an uncommon happening for someone her age. For this reason, Ming and Mei’s loving father, Jin (Orion Lee), decide Mei should stay hidden in the house until the moon is right to perform a ritual that will rid her of her panda permanently.
One major problem with that plan: Mei and her quirky and diverse group of besties have their hormonal hearts set on attending an upcoming concert by dreamy boy band 4*Town.
For Mei to make what is sure to be, like, a life-altering show, she will have to do more than learn how to keep her emotions in check, however.
Plus, as she becomes more comfortable with her large-and-in-charge alter ego, will she truly want to say goodbye to it forever?
It’s of no surprise “Turning Red” is a very personal film for some of the folks who helped make it.
For starters, Shi was 13 in 2002 and, says producer Lindsey Collins in the film’s production notes, had “a very tight and somewhat hilarious and complex relationship with her mom. Some of the craziest moments in the film are based on things that actually happened to Domee.”
And, in fact, “Turning Red” excels when it comes to its all-important mother-daughter relationship. Mei deeply loves her mother, if the woman at times drives her absolutely nuts; and Ming can be overbearing, but that’s only because she so desperately wants to protect her daughter.
The movie also captures what it’s like to have a small but intensely loyal group of friends. With personalities almost as colorful as the beautifully vivid film itself, Mei’s consists of Miriam (Ava Morse, “Ron’s Gone Wrong”), Priya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, the terrific star of Netflix’s “Never Have I Ever”) and, last but not least, the hilarious Abby (Hyein Park, who worked as a story artist on the aforementioned “Bao”).
Yet for all it has going for it — including the fine voice work by newcomer Chiang — “Turning Red” is another lesser work from a studio synonymous with topnotch animation. And it is a slight step down from last year’s entertaining-but-forgettable “Luca,” also released straight to Disney+.
If you can fault the filmmakers for anything specific, it’s for taking this very personal story and giving it an incredibly overblown climactic sequence. Set at the 4*Town concert, of course, it plays like something out of the run-of-the-mill superhero flicks of today.
Despite some rough patches, though, “Turning Away” offers plenty of reasons for a Disney+ subscriber to turn toward it — including inspirations from Asian culture that include anime — and not turn it off prematurely.
Like some of its characters, it’s a little different, and a little strange, and that should be celebrated.
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‘TURNING RED’
2.5 stars (out of 4)
MPAA rating: PG (for thematic material, suggestive content and language)
Running time: 1:40
Where to watch: Streaming Friday on Disney+
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