“Turning Red” (2022) is a powerful metaphor that shows the struggle of not only growing up physically but growing up emotionally and how to take on new challenges.

Meilin “Mei” Lee (Rosalie Chiang) is a 13 year old girl, growing up in Toronto, Canada, who thinks she has everything in her life figured out. Mei loves spending time with her three best friends as they take on 8th grade and she also helps her mother, Ming Lee (Sandra Oh), run the family temple. All is great until she wakes up one day and has turned into a red panda. Ming explains to Mei that it is a family curse and to keep her panda in she must remain calm, maintaining emotions, but that is easier said than done for a girl who is trying to survive middle school.

Pixar makes this movie unique from all of its others using several different aspects. While most of the film is a typical three dimensional animated style, many anime fans will recognize the style of how the character’s eyes grow and sparkle when excited. The characters also strike poses throughout that are in the same style of anime culture. This movie also stands out because it breaks the fourth wall throughout the movie allowing Mei to communicate with the audience, which has never been done before in a Pixar movie.

I think the most interesting thing about “Turning Red” is that there is no true antagonist. While Ming has conflict with Mei, she is a victim herself of family trauma and abuse. Ming tries everything to not let Mei go through the same cycle she did, but sometimes trying to prevent that cycle is what causes it to continue.

This movie took characteristics of a red panda and applied those to Mei. Red pandas put their hands in the air whenever they are threatened or provoked and this is something Mei does throughout. Sometimes when Mei is in panda form and is scared she will release a bark and that is because red panda will release a grumbly bark noise whenever they are scared or frightened. The director chose to use a red panda to create a very powerful metaphor.

“The red panda is a metaphor not just for puberty, but also what we inherit from our moms, and how we deal with the things that we inherit from them,” director Domee Shi told Polygon. “[Mei is] growing up caught between two worlds, East and West, but [she’s] also at this time in her life where she’s blossoming into adulthood, and all these changes are happening not just to her body, but to her relationship with her mom and her friends.”

I was hesitant when I clicked on Disney+ to watch this movie, but I was blown away. From the animation to the music, it was a fantastic movie from beginning to end. This is one of Pixar’s first movies that I would say is meant for preteens and up, not for younger kids. I feel like this movie is really important to start conversations about the challenges of growing up physically and emotionally. I highly recommend this film to anyone over the age of 10 due to some of the content that younger children may not understand or get confused by. I give it a 4.5 out of 5 film reels. “Turning Red” is available to watch now exclusively on Disney+