Tag: Turning Red

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Turning Red (March 11, Disney Plus)

If you have been an adolescent girl or known an adolescent girl, “Turning Red” will ring true in its playful but affectionate portrayal of its heroine, 13-year-old Meilin (Rosalie Chiang), as she teeters on the edge of teenagehood.

Heck, if you’re a human being with feelings, it will ring true.

Much has been made of the fact that Chinese-Canadian director and co-writer Domee Shi is the first woman to direct a feature film for Pixar (she was also the first to direct a short for the company, the Oscar-winning “Bao”), but that would be a moot point if “Turning Red” wasn’t any good.

It is very good: funny, charming, tender, emotionally resonant and beautifully animated.

Mei lives in Toronto in the early 2000s with her Chinese immigrant parents Ming (Sandra Oh) and Jin (Orion Lee), who run a family temple dedicated to their ancestor Sun Yee.

Mei is a proud nerd, a straight A student who loves math, aces the flute and just about anything else she puts her mind to, but is also awkward and goofy. She’s devoted to being a good daughter to her parents while also being a good friend to her girl posse, including Miriam (Ava Morse), who’s white; Priya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), who’s Indo-Canadian, and Abby (Hyein Park), who’s Korean-Canadian.

But that can be complicated, particularly when you have an overprotective tiger mom of a mother who doesn’t approve of your friends — or much of anything else that happens outside home or school.

Things go off the rails when Ming finds Mei’s sketches of a boy — Devon, the 17-year-old clerk at the Daisy Mart — and insists on driving to the store, with a humiliated Mei in tow, to confront the oblivious teenager.

The next day, Mei’s torment has turned her into a giant red panda. As a panicked Mei hides in the bathroom, Ming misinterprets her embarrassment as Mei having got her period. That leads to a scene that will have you laughing and cringing at the same time, as Ming stalks Mei at school and then whips out a box of sanitary pads in full view of her classmates and teacher.

Poof! Mei has turned into a red panda again in a cloud of pink smoke, which happens whenever Mei experiences strong emotions.

It turns out there is a family precedent for the transformation and Ming has a solution, a ritual that will banish the panda for good, but Mei learns that other people like the panda and that she herself enjoys that aspect of her identity. That sets up further confrontation with her mother, not to mention her grandmother (Wai Ching Ho) and aunties.

I won’t spoil things by telling you how it ends, but there is an epic confrontation in the final act that involves a concert by Mei’s favourite boy band, 4*Town, at the SkyDome and might put you in mind of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in “Ghostbusters.”

You might also recognize the name SkyDome, the retractable roofed stadium that opened in Toronto in 1989 and is now called the Rogers Centre.

It’s been a point of pride for Torontonians that “Turning Red” is recognizably set in this city, from background glimpses of the CN Tower to the Toronto Transit Commission streetcars that rumble along its cartoon roads (also extremely recognizable). Beyond that, though, the specificity of the setting adds to the film, in much the same way the New York setting did in Pixar’s “Soul.”

The animation in general is bright and appealing and sometimes wonderfully detailed. When Mei’s dad Jin cooks for the family, it feels like you could reach out and taste the food.

The animation style for the characters is what’s described in the production notes as “chunky cute,” but it’s no less expressive. Mei’s emotions are written all over her animated face.

And emotions, of course, are the whole point: the gloriously messy emotions of transitioning from childhood into young adulthood, but also the complicated emotions of the mother-daughter relationship and being a child of immigrants; the sentimental emotions of adolescent female friendship; the emotions of being part of the sisterhood of women in general.

Most importantly, perhaps, “Turning Red” will elicit emotions in you as you watch it.

Disney Plus also has the comedy “How I Met Your Father” (March 9), a sequel to “How I Met Your Mother.”

Short Takes

The Thing About Pam (March 8, 10 p.m., Global TV)

I haven’t watched enough of this NBC series to give it a full review. Let’s just say, after screening one episode, it’s an odd one, like a “Dateline” episode crossed with “Desperate Housewives.” In fact, the six-episode “The Thing About Pam” is based on a “Dateline NBC” podcast of the same name about the 2011 murder of Betsy Faria of Troy, Missouri. And “Dateline” narrator Keith Morrison does the tongue-in-cheek narration here. In real life, Betsy’s husband Russ was convicted of stabbing her to death but later exonerated. Her best friend Pam Hupp has been charged with the crime, but I wouldn’t say that’s a spoiler for the fictional series. Renée Zellweger plays Pam, buried under a fat suit, and she couldn’t be a more obvious villain if she was twirling a moustache. She radiates loathsomeness from behind her blond housewife bob and her Midwestern accent. The show also stars Katy Mixon as Betsy, Glenn Fleshler as Russ, Judy Greer as prosecutor Leah Askey and Josh Duhamel as Joel Schwartz, the defence lawyer who battled police and prosecution ineptitude to get his client off the hook and point the finger at Pam.

Global TV also has the 42nd season of “Survivor” premiering March 9 at 8 p.m.

The Andy Warhol Diaries (March 9, Netflix)

Thirty-five years after he died, our curiosity about celebrated pop artist Andy Warhol still seems boundless, as evidenced by the popularity of exhibits of his work (the AGO’s last year sold out) and documentaries like this one. This Ryan Murphy-produced, Andrew Rossi-directed series touches on the parts of Warhol that are generally known — his rise from commercial illustrator to one of the most famous artists in America, the bohemian milieu of the Factory, his shooting by Valerie Solanas — and the parts that aren’t, including his romantic relationships with Jed Johnson and Jon Gould. Though we tend to think of glamour and celebrity when we think of Warhol, the series paints a more down-to-earth portrait, both through recollections from confidantes and admirers, and words from Warhol’s own diaries, read in an AI-generated approximation of Warhol’s voice. Though that sounds gimmicky, it doesn’t detract from the flow of the series, at least in the episode I watched.

Netflix also has “Life After Death With Tyler Henry” (March 11), in which the celebrity medium purports to bring messages from the other side to people less famous than the Kardashians and RuPaul; and “Byron Baes” (March 9), which gives good-looking young influencers living in Byron Bay, Australia, a somewhat classier version of the “Jersey Shore” treatment.

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey (March 11, Apple TV Plus)

Would you accept a treatment that would give you access to every memory you ever had, in hyper detail, but would worsen your dementia when the effects wore off? Nonagenarian Ptolemy Grey (Samuel L. Jackson) does in this miniseries based on the Walter Mosley novel. Grey is a hermit and a hoarder when we meet him, living in a filthy, cockroach-infested apartment without a working toilet and stove, and only the visits of his great nephew Reggie (Omar Benson Miller) to sustain him. When Reggie is killed, orphaned family friend Robyn (Dominique Fishback) steps up, as much because she has no place else to go as out of altruism. But a deep bond grows between the two of them. She’s unhappy about the treatments that Ptolemy accepts from unctuous Dr. Rubin (Walton Goggins), who’s hoping to cure dementia with the help of guinea pigs like Ptolemy, but the old man needs his memory back for three things: to find the treasure that family friend Coydog (Damon Gupton) left him and that Coydog was lynched for; to solve the murder of Reggie; and to do something good for Black people. Other characters come in and out, in flashbacks and present day — Ptolemy’s beloved late wife Sensia (Cynthia Kaye McWilliams), his indifferent niece Niecie (Marsha Stephanie Blake) and her thuggish son Hilly, and love interests for Robyn and Ptolemy — but the relationship between the old man and the teenager, who essentially save each other, is the most affecting. The six episodes can plod at times and I didn’t love the ending, but Jackson’s and Fishback’s sympathetic performances kept me watching.

Apple TV Plus also has a second season of “The Snoopy Show” (March 11), from Canada’s WildBrain and inspired by the Charles Schulz comics, focusing on Charlie Brown’s beagle and his bird friend Woodstock.

Odds and Ends

Well, OK, it’s not like “Letterkenny” is going to change its brand of comedy to pay tribute to International Women’s Day. Nonetheless, this special episode (March 8, Crave) name-checks Canadian women both real and fictional, in between jokes about periods, vaginas, sex and more. The women of “Letterkenny” participate in an anti-beauty pageant while the men get a lesson in female appreciation from Professor Tricia (guest star Nazneen Contractor).

If you’d like to see Kristen Stewart’s Oscar-nominated turn as Princess Diana in the movie “Spencer,” it drops on Prime Video on March 10. Prime also has Season 2 of the afterlife comedy “Upload” (March 11), starring Canadian Robbie Amell.

Acorn has the new series “The Chelsea Detective” (March 7), starring Adrian Scarborough, who’s been in everything from “Gosford Park” to “Killing Eve,” as Detective Inspector Max Arnold and Sonita Henry (“Krypton”) as his partner Priya Shamsie.

There’s definite overlap between the nominees for the Oscars and the British Academy Film Awards — right down to the snubs for Canadian director Denis Villeneuve (“Dune”). If you’d like to know how the Brit awards play out, you can watch them on BritBox on March 13 at 3 p.m., streaming live from the U.K.

Finally, CBC’s offerings include a third season of the tween series “Detention Adventure” (March 11 on CBC Gem) and, on “The Nature of Things” (March 11, 9 p.m., CBC and Gem), a look at how various critters get shut-eye in “How the Wild Things Sleep.”

This post was edited to add a start time for the British Academy Film Awards.

NOTE: The listings here are in Eastern Standard Time and I’ve verified the times where possible, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of programs reviewed reflects what I’m given access to by networks and streamers, whether reviews are embargoed, how many shows I have time to watch and my own personal taste. The Odds and Ends section includes shows that I have not watched.