Turning Red
While coming-of-age stories are a dime a dozen, coming-of-age stories centered around women–and more specifically, women of color–are still sorely missing from mainstream media. However, Pixar’s Turning Red isn’t notable solely for helping to remedy this problem. What makes the film stand out as one of 2022’s best movies is its charm, sincerity, and willingness to explore complex topics–topics like generational trauma, being a first-generation immigrant, and mother-daughter relationships–while also making you feel all the joy, magic, and “cringe” that comes with simply being a 13-year-old girl.
In Meilin and her boyband-obsessed best friends, I saw myself and my own friends, fawning over some emo band or the latest vampire-filled young adult novel. In her risque drawings she tries her hardest to keep her overbearing mother from finding, I saw my folder of fanfiction I would have been mortified to let my own mother so much as glance at. And, in the dynamic we see between Meilin and her mother that leads her down the well-trodden path of people-pleasing and repressing her own needs and emotions, I saw myself and my own mother.
Despite Turning Red using vibrant colors, a bombastic animation style, and mythical transformations to symbolize a young girl’s loss of control over her emotions and body that culminate in kaiju fights, it somehow manages to feel earnest and grounded. It’s an incredible accomplishment and a beautiful ode to loud, brilliant daughters and the mothers who love them in every way they know how. – Jessica Howard
