Movie Review: Turning Red

Turning Red is great. It's gorgeously animated, extremely funny, and emotionally effective. It's Pixar quality without being overly beholden to the studio's usual formula. It's a wonderful movie, and you should go watch it immediately.

Also, it's weird as hell in ways I honestly wasn't expecting. I want to be clear, this isn't a complaint. If anything, I was impressed with the movie's willingness to deviate from the norm, though there were occasionally choices I found slightly distracting. For instance, the film is quite explicitly set in 2002. The movie goes out of its way to establish and remind us of this several times. But with the possible exception of a Tamagotchi, nothing unique to that era felt particularly relevant to the story or setting (the Tamagotchi served a fairly large role, but it would have been easy to replace it with something else). I can't find an obvious reason for setting the movie in this particular era, though I can't think of any reason to prioritize using a less specific time.

Again, that's not a complaint. While I found the decision slightly distracting, it was a small price to pay for the experience of seeing something that looked and felt different than anything I've seen from Pixar to date. And make no mistake: this is absolutely something new.

I'm not talking about the lead character or themes, either - I'm talking style. The movie is set in Toronto, but it's a version of Toronto bathed in pastels. I understand aspects of the look were inspired by anime, but the effect doesn't match anything I can think of. It feels almost like a three-dimensional watercolor painting, or maybe a kid's picture book. I'm not sure why they chose to match this style with this story, but it absolutely works. On paper, I almost think it shouldn't: this is a coming of age story - I'd expect something more realistic would be a more obvious choice. But while I'd be pressed to explain the rational behind this style, the effect is nothing short of inspired. I was pulled in by the visuals immediately.

It's a good thing, too, because while the style won me over at once, the comedy did not. The humor in the first act felt a bit too over-the-top for the otherwise grounded opening. Until the movie introduced its magical elements, I was ready to dismiss it as a beautifully animated movie that didn't quite work tonally.

I should have had more faith. As soon as the second act started, all the setup started paying off. The jokes landed, the characters developed depth, and I was invested. From that point on, everything worked for me. And, hell, I'm not even a furry.

Oh, yeah. Did I mention this movie is kind of about furries? I don't mean that in the conventional sense, where you could argue anything about were-creatures or animal transformation might be of interest to furries. I mean, the look of the main character's transformation absolutely appears to be a direct reference to that subculture.

Again, a weird choice for a kid's movie, but it absolutely works in context. That sentence is basically the movie in a nutshell: this is the sort of movie Pixar doesn't made. It's in a different style, from a different point of view, and is set in the last place and time you'd expect from this studio. Domee Shi is far from the directorial voice the studio is known for. Thank God they they could see the value of that voice, because Turning Red is fantastic.

I really hope this represents the philosophy we'll see driving the next era of Pixar. As much as I've loved the studio in the past, they too often lean on structures, tones, and styles they've used before. Turning Red delivers all the quality Pixar is known for, but it does so in its own way, from a fresh perspective. I loved it.