Modern PIXAR and The Crux of Complex Catharsis (Patreon)

Like a lot of you, I watched Turning Red this weekend and it left me a blubbering mess. And even though I’ve loved a lot of Pixar’s output lately, I genuinely think it’s the best thing they’ve done in years. It seems like many of you seem to agree! So if you want to skip just to the part where I talk about that particular film, it’s in part five at the end of this column. But if you also want to dig into the whole it? That is, if you want to talk about the ins and outs of context that help define WHY the movie works so dang well by comparison?

Then, as always, let’s do the deep dive…

1. AMBITION WILL GET YOU A BUNCH OF PLACES

For better or worse, Pixar is getting more ambitious.

Granted, they’ve always been ambitious. Their classic films are full of radical inventiveness in both premise and execution. But crucial to the success of those films is the fact that, at their core, they use deceptively simple dramatic aims. Their big plot goals are often concrete like “Get back to Andy’s house! Find your lost fish son! Or become a great cook despite the fact you’re a rat!” I mean, the films are about more than that of course, but that goal-oriented, dramatic clarity helps set the stakes of the story. Which in turn helps make their thematic lessons play out as broader emotional experiences. It doesn’t matter if it is cherishing childhood while it lasts, realizing that you can let your kid grow up (even after a traumatic experience), or learning that it’s never too late to make room for new people in your life. Heck, even Wall-E, for its eco-dalliances and silent expressions, is just a straight-forward love story. All these films work because, even within the hyper creative scenarios of their conceit, they all identify a clear want and then hit that clear catharsis with the deftest of hands.

But now that Pixar is in their third decade of existence (great googly moogly time’s arrow always marches on) there has been a slight, almost imperceptible change to this approach. Yes, I know they’ve retreaded into some major sequel territory with the Carses, Findingses, and Incredibleses, but they’ve also stretched forward with some heady conceits for some of the most thematically and emotionally complex films they’ve made to date. We all have our favorites from the last decade, but I’d argue this creative ambition is best embodied by Inside Out, a film that dives into the complex inner “world” of our own emotions and somehow paints a successful portrait of how child psychology works through various forms of crisis. In that, it has not one, but many goals that are big, bold, intimate and variant, stretching to ethereal concepts like upending the emotional structure of your life or even learning “what is sadness for?” It’s a monumental work, emblematic of the heights one can reach when aiming for something complex.

To their credit, I’d argue almost every single one of the other modern Pixar films have been equally ambitious in their own way. And that some have even reached similar spectacular heights… But some don’t quite land the same way. As always the question is “why?”

And also as always, the answer is complex.

2. NAVIGATIN’ DA MOVEESH

It needs to be said again and again and again that movies are personal.

Because everyday I feel like we’re watching someone stuff their foot in their mouth over that simple fact. For as much as movies are single, solitary works of art, they also require a person to view them. And that person often has so many different thoughts and experiences than everyone else. To that, the problem of being a “critic” is that you’re immediately thrown into the crucible of cultural arbitration. People often act like it’s your job to properly rate something within the zeitgeist, to temper mounting hype, or match their exact feelings, etc. But if you worry about all that, you’ll get eaten alive by the swirling id of the internet. You just have to always do your best to bring it back to that conversational writing level. Often it’s this question of framing. Even when writing an essay about your interpretation, it helps to imagine you’re sitting there and talking to someone about their favorite movie and thus have to delicately explain why it is that you’re feeling even the slightest bit different. Essentially, you have to show care with the thing you are engaging in. Sometimes we handle it better than other times. Sometimes I’m terrible at it. But you have to speak from a personal place of your intersections, especially when they feel far apart. And try to engage with the two crucial factors of approach.

The first factor is understanding what isn’t for you (and handling that as responsibly as possible). Like, hey, I don’t know if y’all know this! But criticism has largely been defined by white guys (like me) for decades! I’m not trying to be flippant, there’s just a whole lot of obviousness to that fact. Because it helped create this monolithic idea about how films “worked” and what was deemed accessible. No wonder that when dealing with them in the late 90’s reception to In The Cut, Campion apparently called them “the wall of corduroy” and few things feel more apt (note: I wrote this sentence before the critics choice speech). Now, things are changing both slowly and sharply, but all this stuff hits the basic intersections of society’s racism, structural and otherwise. Thus, what so often seems to be the matter of concern is the critic’s relative ability to look at this other character on screen and see them through their own humanity - and NOT merely a reflection on the white status quo. It’s sort of a big can of worms to try and summarize this problem in a sentence, but note how often they’ll approve portrayals of POC who are helpful to white main characters, but suddenly putting a POC in a main role of blockbuster film makes the wall of Cordoroy go “whoa whoa what the fuck?”

I mean, I’m not going to give a click to it, but we have enough people posting from tHe BaD rEvIeW of Turning Red to know this problem goes ever on. So we just have to clock how it speaks to that whole question of myopia. Because we have all these generations of viewers who never learned how to look at anything other than a white protagonist. And all the while, there were outsider audiences being force fed the white protagonist story and learning to relate in bits and pieces while finding their own representation in the cracks. For years it felt like this stuff was never really talked about. But these days, I feel like it’s the main thing that gets talked about, which is literally the most important thing in the universe. Because in the end, we have to realize what should be obvious: that just because something isn’t “for” you, doesn’t mean it can’t be for you. And I don’t say all this like I’ve “figured it out” and am on the mystical other side. Lord, no. I just know it’s something we have to do our best with, engage with sensitivity, and always remember that it's a part of the discussion.

Especially when you get to the second factor, which is talking about craft.

Because it’s tricky. Especially when you realize how much people measure craft by that very emotional proximity thing we just talked about. I feel like so many critics walk backwards from the emotions of “wow, that personal movie hit harder. It must’ve been better made!” Or “that not-personal movie didn’t hit. It must not be as good!” But somewhere under all this is the actual craft of storytelling and mechanics that help or hurt in that pursuit. The analysis of how to best pull an audience in not with the WHAT but the HOW. Which is the discussion of pretty everything I ever cared about in criticism. Like, how do you make a viewer empathize? How do you make the specific feel universal? How do you make the universal feel specific? And in criticism, how do you talk about all these things in an analytic way that can actually diagnose and be helpful to a reader? I hate that it makes this sound like it’s some big science, as if it's easy to know where one starts and one begins. Again, I don’t know. I just know I like talking about mechanics. And at least I understand what I actually want out of this. Because my goal is not to properly rate things. I genuinely don’t care what Pixar you or I think is better or worse than another… I just want everyone to be thinking critically about the mechanics because I genuinely think awareness of craft helps foster a healthier environment for not only artists who make these films, but viewers who seek them out. As silly as it sounds, it helps make more good movies. And selfishly-speaking?

I love when there’s more good movies.

3. HITTING THE CATHARSIS BUTTON

What is catharsis, anyway? I wrote about it in a piece on Onward and “The Moment of Transcendence,” but rather than force some long retread on you, we’ll use short hand and say it’s “when the thing you most want to happen in a movie, happens.”  Sometimes a movie can make that catharsis clear from the get go. Like, it’s a character goal where they have to get home and reunite with their family or something. Then the drama comes in our fear that the thing they / we want won’t come to pass because of the narrative’s obstacles. But sometimes catharsis can be unexpected, where through sleight of hand, it doesn’t give us what the character wants, but instead offers us the thing we didn’t know we really needed from the narrative. And often catharsis comes as a piece of internal understanding for the character themselves, a reflection of their growth, and often enables the character to do the thing at the end of the film that they never could do at the beginning. And more often than not, these moments are centered within the arc of relationships between the characters themselves. Which allows us to go from mere sympathy, to ecstatic empathy, all as if we were feeling the catharsis ourselves.

So! While there’s a whole lot of good, divergent art out there, Pixar movies are family crowd pleasers that aim for catharsis. Going back to the classic films mentioned, like Finding Nemo. Marlon’s tangible goal is to get Nemo back, but the real story is him dealing with the past trauma and realizing he can't be a helicopter parent forever. And that his little Nemo can be brave and resourceful on his own. Likewise, in Up, Carl has this big goal to go on the adventure he always thought he never got to go on, but comes to realize he already had one with his wife - and more importantly needs to realize even though he’s lost her, he can still make room for new people. But when it comes to the films of this decade? The plot goals are not only a bit more odd. And the thematic switches where we go “but it’s REALLY about X” are as well. So I just really just want to run through how a few of them do in terms of “hitting that catharsis button” before we get to deeper discussions of both Luca and Turning Red. Though I fully understand mileage may vary in terms of the opinions on these films, this is an attempt to dig into their mechanics…

And to be clear, spoilers for each and every film discussed herein!

Coco - This is a really great example to start with because of its range of success. The film starts by setting up the clear goal of our young hero, Miguel, who wants to be a great guitar player, much like the legendary Ernesto de la Cruz of yesteryear! But his family forbids it for some seemingly wonky reasons involving a musician who once scorned the family. But through some slightly obfuscated set-up, Miguel comes to believe that the famous Ernesto actually was his great-great-grandfather. Meanwhile, the opening also stealthily sets up that his great grandmother, Coco, can’t remember anything because of effects of dementia and largely just stares about, albeit endearingly so. Then, through Pixar-ification of high conceit, Miguel is trying to obtain a guitar and ends up in the achingly gorgeous spirit world. There he ends up going on an adventure with Hector, a barely remembered spirit, who agrees to help Miguel try to meet his hero great great grandfather. But as the adventure goes on and we creep into the final act there’s this still subtle feeling of “wait, where are we actually going with all this?” But then the dominoes finally start falling. We learn Miguel’s real great great grandfather is actually Hector, and Ernesto is this scumbag who stealthily killed him and stole his songs! And it all becomes this desperate race to get Miguel home and for Hector to be remembered.

If that sounds like a lot of description for basic plot mechanics, well, it’s because it is. The thing about Coco is there’s a loooooot of shoe-leather in the plot just to hide the reality of the core relationships. And it’s all done for a lot of “aha!” moments that… mostly feel ethereal? And yet, there’s no denying that by the time the film comes back to play that final a lullaby of “Remember Me” for his great grand-mother? Holy heck does that moment work. It could rouse even the darkest of souls. But I think that’s because that moment, at its core, is something incredibly simple. That initial set-up with Coco herself is so clean and evident, drawing on our empathy for her dementia and the heart-rendering power of music. But as for how this immaculate moment fits into the movie around it? I get the thematic logic of it all. I mean, it’s a film about remembrance and the way our family lore can often be hidden and obfuscated by pain. It’s just that as a dramatic experience of watching, we sort of get kept at bay for too long. And it’s hard to not knowing “what” you’re really wanting as a character tries navigate almost the entire story. Because without that? Without genuine tension in the relationships that drive the story? Then the sole tension is so much more in journeys perils and not the stakes of the core relationship as we see them unfolding. In the end, all of Coco makes sense. But complete catharsis isn’t always about the logic of a story, but instead the heart of the dramatic thrust.

Toy Story 4 - “Why do I exist!?!?” Alas, Forky’s panicked existentialism gets at the core issue of this movie itself. Because this is a movie series that has already hit the bullseye on existential fears of abandonment with the Jessie storyline in Toy Story 2. Then, when pressed for more, they just doubled down harder on the same idea with Toy Story 3 (to perhaps less success), but no doubt resulting in a perfect capper for the series. But hey! What happens AFTER the end of stories, anyway? How do we become more comfortable with, I dunno, super retirement? The movie wonders much of the same thing, which is why there’s this grand feeling of “why am I still here?” hanging over everything. But that might have a little more power were it not for the fact it feels like the third time in a row we’ve evoked some notion of “letting go” with these same characters. But still, in trademark Pixar fashion, I think the movie hits surprising notes of grace, whether it’s the fun of Bo Peep’s new life or the existential ponderings with new fan-fave Forky. But the ultimate problem with the film is that it seems split between telling a complete story about Woody’s relationship with either of those two characters and thus leaves so much on the table. Like, what starts off feeling like his journey to becoming a “parent” with Forky, largely gets truncated when they separate and it turns into yet another rescue mission. Which then largely grinds against what ultimately is the budding re-romance with Bo Peep. The result is a charming movie with great moments of sentiment, but whose catharsis is hard to achieve in a film that doesn’t give time to the arc of either relationship, especially just to end up saying something we’ve already seen so many times before.

Onward - As linked above, it’s a film I wrote about in depth, but Onward absolutely highlights the prospective problems of aiming for something complex and narrow. We have Ian, a main character who never met his dad, but he and his brother decide to go on this magical quest to briefly revive and meet him. To this, there’s a clearly stated goal that drives the want of the film (and it’s clearly a very personal story for director Dan Scanlon). But through circumstance at the story's end, Ian realizes he can’t meet his father, but that’s okay because it was actually his older brother who was the one who was there for him all along (though it all kind of unfolds in a weird order). It’s a classic “bait and switch” catharsis and I would argue a really noble thematic aim. Seriously, on paper, this should be my exact shit.  But I keep getting stuck on details, specifically with the set-up of their relationship. Because there’s something about the introduction of their brotherhood where I don’t exactly understand their relationship, so I don’t get that deep intrinsic want of “I want them to repair this!” Moreover, the exact problems of his brother are kind of poorly defined, specifically what the angle is with calling him “a screw up.” Moreover, the problem with Ian that doesn’t really get addressed (outside of his “giving” the whole dad meeting thing to his brother) is that Ian’s so in his own head with his hangups that it’s sort of hard to glam onto the relationship between them at all, even though they’re both on the adventure. And at the end, even though we know the brother well by this point, the film keeps us from being there for his cathartic moment, too. There’s kind of crippling myopia to all this. A “I’m the main character and it’s about what I can and can’t get!” syndrome that silently prevents us from having so many of the bigger moments of catharsis within the grander story. Which kind of stinks because I really, really like what the film is aiming for.

Soul - So much of the trouble with this one is not plot mechanics, but thematic. Like, right off the bat, this film’s got some genuinely wonky choices regarding race and religion and I think they’re really important to talk about and other critics can cover them much better (boop and boop). To that, anytime I try to talk about something other than this point it feels like an act of avoidance; to use the popular joke, it’s a callous way of asking, “but other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” when the whole point is these problematic elements are inexorable. But outside of what Soul ignores, you realize that it’s also a pretty narrowcast film about what happens when we get our dream job. Specifically, trying to get at the “why” we make art in a world where so few people get to be working artists. It’s about that gap between your dream fulfilling you and the day it becomes your job, along with all the ways it feels like a job. Now, for me? I’ll admit it hit in a way that felt kind of transcendent and made for a powerful first watch. But I know there’s a myopic quality to this, too. It seems like a film made for the high ups of Pixar questioning what it all means, but trying to layer that within another story for “the purpose driven generation.” As such, I kept asking who someone on “the outside of artistic industries” would really feel about the film (though I think there’s possibly a lot of ways the film doubles as a metaphor about depression and feeling purposeless in general). General reaction seemed to be kind of mixed? So for all the beautiful textures, score, and original music, the truth is that I don’t have a good sense for what sticks or doesn’t stick with this movie for people. But I can guess that much of its issues rest in an evolving production history, where Kemp was brought in when the scope changed. Thus part of me can’t help but wonder what a ground up, holistic rebuild of this film would look like. But I don't want that to diminish Kemp’s hard won successes with this film, either. Especially considering the fact I was deeply moved by the execution of its key cathartic moments. I just wonder who they’re really for in a broader sense.

So! When going through all four examples here, the thing I want to highlight is that there’s no singular problem with these films. Instead, they succeed and / or feel lacking for very different reasons. But this is the crucial crux with “the Pixar-ification of complex catharsis.” If these were organic dramas that allowed for more variation and dalliance, there are ways they could use messiness to their advantage (for instance, the audacious last act turn of Sorry To Bother You). But they have to be Pixar movies which means they have to broadly apply into these specific, functional moments of well-oiled craft that fit in an accessible family film. Which means we have to realise that trying to take these nuanced human experiences and whittle them down into these catharsis button moments is… well, it’s hard as fuck to do. And there’s no film that may be more true for than Pixar’s 2021 offering.

Yup, let’s go to Italy…

4. BAITING THE LITTLE MERMAN

I’ve written about this a lot already, but I spent most of my life in the queer closet. Some part of me knew I was bisexual and liked boys when I was I was very young, but that also means there was this immediate paralyzing fear of this within me. Because the idea of liking boys during childhood in the homophobia of 80’s and early 90s Boston? It was NOT GREAT, BOB. Especially in the crucible of playing sports and stuff. So as I grew, I spent so much time bargaining with myself and finding ways to put up the defense ahead of time. You have no idea how much I joked with straight dudes about “becoming gay” in college because hahaha wouldn’t that be sooooo funny? (my yearbook is full of said dudes making references to this). But after some college dalliances, instead of blossoming, I got into a hetero relationship where bringing queerdom up was quickly met with fear and thus driven further inward. And since I also was in that relationship for most of my life, I then hit a point where you’re suddenly single in my mid 30s and was finally ready for this to be a real, actualized, and meaningful part of my life. But that also means you feel like you’re 15 years old again and it’s fucking terrifying. You spent so long not addressing it, but here it all is, all at once… And it’s still confusing. But I also want to make it clear that everyone’s experience with the closet is different. As such, I would never speak for anyone. But that was mine. And having gone through it, it’s so interesting watching films that speak to SO MANY parts of my life that I now understand in a completely different way. And because of all that I just shared, it would stand to logic that Luca is, ostensibly, something I should completely be in the pocket for.

I mean, I remember when it came out and people joked about the Call Me By Your Name comparisons, but upon finally watching the film later I was like “oh shit, there’s a loooooot of that here, huh?” No, it’s not overtly queer like that film is. I’m sure if you really wanted to bury your head in the sand of “don’t say gay” you could insist Luca is just a story about two young mermaid lads who enjoy vespas, pesto, and bike racing together! Innocent as can be! Yeahhhh, this is a film that is pretty directly codifying as gay. Everything about Luca and Alberto’s relationship gets you there, from their special connection, to the dangerous notion of being “sea-monster” and thus hiding yourself away. Granted, the filmmakers sort of sidestep the whole issue by talking about the film taking place during the “pre-romance” stage of life and there are many ways it does that in a genuinely thoughtful and wholesome way. But the queer coding is all there within the subtext that ranges from pastiche to very direct. But now holding onto this powerful thematic symbolism, the question then becomes…

What do you do with it?

As in, what is the actual arc of this story? What are the status quos being set-up? What is the thing that the characters can do at the end they couldn’t do at the beginning? An adult dramatic film like Call Me By Your Name gets to be very overt about the discovery of sexuality and being young in this oddball, messy way. But a film like Luca has a harder task of trying to commodify all the same feelings in the “accessible family film” angle. For one, it has to dance around this very thing that it’s trying not to be overt about it (even though it’s a film ostensibly about the fact you shouldn’t have to hide, but Disney’s gonna Disney). The whole thing is that in order for this subtext to function, the central extended metaphor has to be rock solid through and through. Second, the story has to have these goals that create these clear wants within the viewer to thus create tension for the narrative. And three, all of this has to come together as catharsis within the central relationships.

As far as the first task goes, the central metaphor is… uneven??? I mean, there are more overt moments that give the film genuine tension. Specifically, there’s the moment Luca doesn’t want to be outed himself and shouts “sea monster!” at Alberto, which is absolutely devastating. If you know that particular context, it’s one of the single most stark betrayals imaginable. It’s something loaded beyond loaded and thus, probably needs more atonement for than what is given. More troubling is the pat resolution with the parents, specifically after the characters spent so much time away from them, so it feels less like a hard one victory. But it’s also exactly where the metaphor is a little wonky. Because it’s not like the parents are also gay, ya know? So even though their words about “acceptance” may be very direct, it’s this odd thing that can’t help but feel like a flirtation because the metaphor doesn’t extend in a completely thorough sense.

What also doesn’t really help is the second aspect is the nesting doll approach of the story goals. First it’s Luca wanting to go on land, then developing the forbidden relationship with Alberto. Then it’s all about building this vespa.Then it’s winning the vespa. But that means entering this triathlon race, which involves befriending Giulia, which introduces to school, etc. etc. Again, I get the thematic nature of what is intended here about “always opening up to a bigger world.” But it feels like this constant threshold crossing and adding of spinning plates to the story. And just when everything should be coming together like a Rube Goldberg machine, the final race instead breaks down into a series of confused rooting interests and weird abandonment of Giulia’s own stakes within the story. Yes, it eventually gets where it needs to go in a beautifully rendered “coming out” sense, but I can’t stop thinking about how it all adds up. Ultimately, it’s a story about how some people want to stay put and the fracturing relationships that come with change, but as much as I can relate, it still feels vaguely defined. Because in order for the bait and switch catharsis to fully work, part of what you need from the onset is this vague feeling of “what I secretly want is for Luca to go to college!” Which is a big ask, man. And it puts all the more pressure on the third aspect…

Which is the core relationships. I already mentioned how Giulia unfortunately kind of falls away and that the relationship with parents is nice, but ends up feeling pat instead of cathartic. So it of course comes to the story of Alberto and the film needing to put a button on this that actually matters. But after all this turmoil and fear and change and loss, it then it hits with a fucking wallop… Alberto still thanks him because: “you got me off the island.” It’s one of those movie-defining lines that reframes the story with utter clarity. Yes, the island is that closet, that lonesome place where you feel like all of you is something that can never belong to the world, and thus must be hidden away. And as that train goes off and Luca catches one last look at the glimmering island, you’re hit with this powerful feeling of what this means, as well as what it means to go beyond.

Needless to say, I teared up. It is completely the right ending for this story, but also something that makes me question a million little steps of the how and why that we got here. Whether it be the treatment of Giulia’s role, the nesting doll goals, or even how much they were trying to stuff into this in the first place. Or dare I suggest, something that also needs to leave us with a more complex relationship with the parents. Or even entertain the idea of what it could mean in terms of them moving on together. The questions swirl because the sentiment of the final moment is so powerful and so invoking of that which we bring to it ourselves. However many needles it properly threaded or didn’t, I think Luca is one of the most sensitive, nuanced, wonky, but all together weirdest family films ever made?  But like I said above, the fact that these nuanced human experiences have to get whittled down into these catharsis button moments is still hard as fuck. It takes everything about the film being fine tuned to the end purposes and dramatically clear about every intention at every step. Which is a rare thing.

And brings us to the film of the hour…

5. ALWAYS GO FULL PANDA

My childhood was not like Meilin’s childhood. Like, whatsoever. No, it’s not just because hers is the story of a young Chinese girl and her immigrant family in Toronto. It’s even on the broadest emotional levels, too. Because my parents were not strict. I mean, they weren’t even together. I lived with my single mother and she was working all the time and I had a much older brother who was out living his own life. Thus, I was a latchkey kid who was pretty independent. Outside of mostly needing rides for activity stuff, I liked to cook on my own, do stuff at my own pace, and stay up late (not much has changed). Even in terms of our relationship, my mother was always light on her feet with all my friends (she was a high school teacher), but she was also dealing with a lot of crap in her own life. Seriously, my parents had their hands full with their own stuff, each other, and my older brother always was the one who had the issues that needed attention. I always felt like I was just kinda there, off to the side (so if anything, I was sort of seeking out attention in various other ways). But I say all this to make a point. Because when I was watching Turning Red, I had absolutely no personal frame of reference for that feeling of having your mom mom always watching over you, embarrassing you, monitoring your behavior, or even trying to “protect” you in strident ways. I simply never had this experience.

And yet by the story’s end, I was still a blubbering mess.

The reason is probably because Turning Red does such an outstanding job of telling that story. Of getting me to understand, empathize, and then go on the full emotional journey between all these well-defined characters. It sounds simple when I put it like that, but it’s what great movies do. And it’s certainly not easy to achieve. Part of the reason I wanted to go through Luca so thoroughly is because I wanted to use that three part breakdown of the metaphor / the plot goals / and the relationships so that it could be applied to this film in turn.

Starting with the metaphor, there’s a dead on directness to everything happening with Panda life. Even the titular “turning red” is directly called out as the period metaphor (and thank you film for actually saying it and showing pads, etc.). But the metaphor is about more than that. It’s about your body changing, getting fur, wanting to express yourself, and yes, getting horny as hell. If all this sounds familiar, it’s because, yes, it’s just like the hit 80’s film Teen Wolf, but in the best possible way. And like that film, we understand the implicit tension of being “found out” of course, but it doesn’t have Meiling spend the entire film trying to hide. Instead, it doubles down on the metaphor of her (comparatively docile) teenage rebellion and having more fun than she’s ever had. So at every step and expression of the Red Panda, the film draws on the power of hyper specificity, both in characterization and theme.

Which then brings us to the notion of creating goals. The opening I was tracking carefully because it pulls this great little trick of first establishing the hierarchy of “behaving for parents” and then all the ways she thinks she’s a cool rockstar living it up. What I love about this framing is how it characterizes her want - NOT by having her dour and bummed out about always having to help her parents - but in a joyful way that also shows her inner denial. The other characters even point out the “brainwashed” aspect. Which makes the arrival of the Red Panda all the more chaotic for her OWN selfhood just the same. This is rocking her status quo. Moreover, it doesn’t make her own goal simple. She’s drawn to both sides equally, which allows the perfect space of finesse and growth. So when the film gets a third of the way in and finally draws the main plot goal of keeping the panda “inside” until the closing ceremony- you know, the one where you just take all the shameful human parts of you lock it in a little box! Oh boy!

When it happened I made this indefinable noise. It was a reaction to the deft execution and perfect stake setting, but also the heartbreak that comes from realizing what her mother has done to herself - and now doing it to Meiling in turn. There’s obviously cultural specificity here, but it’s something relatable for so many of us (for me, yay Catholicism). And there is such a part of dominant culture that loves to shame you for the things you love (especially young girls). I mean, I was already on pins and needles because you could see the architecture of what is being set up, particularly when the competing 4-Town concert was thrown into the mix. The stakes are not only so fucking clear of this, which then allows the tension with her mother to play out perfectly. Seriously, I had to pause at various points to calm the fuck down from the comic stress. This is why clear rooting interests and goals can be so effective. It’s not about tricking anyone with some plot reveal. I mean, from minute one, we are OF COURSE rooting for her keep her panda out. The coup of the film is that it also makes us care about the cost of doing so…

Which brings us to the core relationships and catharsis. There is first, the relationship with her friends. Three perfectly rendered dorky souls who are the root cause of her happiness and life balance. And I love the way the film draws the line of Meilin’s feelings of guilt over the fact that that is the case. Which is why they also provide such a crucial architecture to the duality of Meilin’s arc (along with showcasing their own thoughts, needs and wants). Similarly, the big dad scene is so sneaky good because it reveals how much he understands what is happening around him. He has full sight lines on all of this - and probably a little bit of guilt for his role in her mother’s ceremony. But he also knows his job is to build empathy and understanding between them without forcing it. And moreover, understanding that this is ultimately something they have to do on their own (seriously, it’s a top ten dad scene for me). Because in the end, this is so much about Meilin and her mother, Ming.

Did I mention the tension of all this? God, the movie is so good at executing on it. Not because the situations themselves are super tense, but because you understand every single thought and the stakes of every single moment with aplomb. Not just in psychologically simple ways, either. There’s a whole range of depth in the way Ming insists “thank goodness I was here!” Along with the way she has to hold onto the idea that Meilin is a good girl and blame the outside world, even when evidence suggests otherwise. Equally important is seeing the ways the two of them genuinely get along in the beginning. It allows us to understand the base love at the core of the relationship, which drives our own want for catharsis. But most of all, we come to understand the architecture of everything Ming wants here, too. The regret she has in hurting people with her own rebellious red panda moments of youth, along with the love and regrets and needs of her own “locked box” life. Everything adds up to the finish. And if  you told me that I would see a movie that had a climactic, nay CATHARTIC ass grind in a mother’s face I would have said “damn, I want to see that movie.” But the film’s climactic rube goldberg machine just keeps firing from there. We’re told earlier that in the ceremony you can just sin what’s in your heart, so when 4-Town suddenly chimes in with “nobody like u,” an aspirational love song of youth that doubles for a story of parentage, I was clapping… Then I fucking lost at that Petite Maman-esque moment of Meilin getting to see her 13 year old mom… Because that’s when it hits you… it’s not the panda…

It’s that vulnerable, scared girl who is the one who really got locked inside.

Again, I was a blubbering mess.

A mess of empathy, a mess of sorrow, a mess of loving need for the catharsis between them. But the thing that strikes hardest about the hard won moments that follow this climax is that none of it is pat. It’s all part of a series of bargains that are still uneasy. To which, I love how quickly the grandmother and the aunties just have to make do with Meiling’s decision to keep the panda (“It’s her life, now move”). And the ending mirror sentiments of “I’m scared it will take me away from you” is the mirrored reflections of what it means to love in spite of the change around us. It’s the thing they’ll always be worried about. But at least now it’s the thing that they can understand and hopefully respect.

The deep functional nature of all this storytelling makes delights of the tangible details in the movie feel like a victory lap. There were, like, 40 distinct times a quick hit of animation made me laugh on sight alone. Moreover, I get anime references now! The third auntie was doing the Naruto run! There’s that image of her jumping that’s from The Girl Who Leapt Through Time! And of course my ears perked up the second I heard James Hong’s perfect voice. And the line of “what is she going to do, ground me?” then cutting to the reveal shot of her mom as basically being a kaiju in the distance? It might be one of my favorite shots in years. There’s even a cooking montage! What more could I want?!? Seriously, writer / director Domee Shi and co-writer Julia Cho have crafted something that already feels so special, so specific, and yet so universal. It already feels like it’s being celebrated. And I can only celebrate in turn.

But as we stated above in navigatin’ da moveesh, we accept that mileage may vary. While I have little interest in the bad faith takes, I have to admit that part of me guffawed at the subtle audacity of the Turning Red’s ending call to arms where Meilin asks: “how bout you?” I say this because I think that question taps into a lot of variation in terms of where and how you grew up. For me, it’s easy to imagine neighborhoods of my hometowns where some overworked single mom named Colleen Sullivan has a whiskey in one hand and a bunch of little hellions running around outside and throwing rocks and power lines and when she sees the end of this film she’d thinks “oh please no, they’re all already a squad of rabid possums, they don’t need more encouragement ” But I joke because I don’t actually think that’s a valid concern. Given the story, it’s a pretty clear message to all the Meilins of the world who feel as if the world is trying to get them to put their panda’s in a locket. And moreover, part of understanding how much the film is really about upholding the virtue of balanced, joyful life.

And yet, even with the film’s target audience, we understand that no audience is a monolith. For every person who loved this and felt seen, I’m sure there’s a person who should’ve and didn’t. A person who can identify something problematic I likely missed, or didn’t even know to consider. Or maybe someone who just simply can’t help but want something else from these kinds of narratives that can normalize their own experience in a deeper way. To which, I can only empathize on how much it sucks to have something supposedly “represent you” and yet still feel on the outside of it. Because that part of the story surrounding a film matters too. To talk. To examine. To share. To compare. There is nothing I like absorbing more. Because yes, even that, is a huge part of telling stories. Especially the will to go forth and tell your own. And for all these mundane discussions of craft, in the end, I just want everyone telling their own story the best way possible. Because the best things happen when you become a blubbering mess.

It means that 13 year old you is still in there.

<3HULK