I'm a 46 year old Queer man and if you had asked me yesterday I could not have told you that I'd ever feel so connected to a 13 year old Chinese girl.
Domee Shi, the director, and writer, along with Julia Cho, have crafted the most sincere love letter to the tweenage years I've ever sat through. Hands down this is easily my new favorite Pixar film and it's a complete shame this did not get a wide release in theaters. I don't know if that was Pixar or Disney not knowing how to market the story but I would have killed to see this on the big screen.
The premise, Mei Mei is a 13 year old, living in Toronto and she and her family maintain a quaint temple that is devoted to the red panda. But it turns out her family has a secret, and as Mei Mei enters her "womanhood" she finds herself morphing into a big fluffy red panda.
Now you might say, well that's very specific, but in the end this unbelievably heartwarming movie tells a pretty universal tale of tweenage insecurities and budding rebellion that comes with puberty.
I spent most of the third act fighting back tears while also laughing and cheering as Mei Mei navigates the hurdles of her gift, while also trying to please her parents and extended family. The best part of this film, there is no villain. Yes, her mom is overbearing and contributes to some of the hurdles, but it's done from a place of concern. But it leads to one of the best frigging family squabbles ever put to screen.
The third act is unbelievably fun and so heartwarming and is handled with a real sense of what families should be able to do when they come together to help and support one another.
Also, frigging kudos to the production team for taking a subject, often used for laughs or a way to "shackle" both women and young girls, but this movie doesn't shy away from discussing a woman's menstrual cycle. It's handled with a bit of humor but also an amazing amount of levity for a subject you rarely see discussed, much less in Pixar film.
So yeah, thanks Domee Shi and the rest of the writing and production team. I too know what it's like to be embarrassed for a love of boy bands when I was 13, along with my own secret, which took me a lot longer to accept than Mei Mei, but like her, I'm better for embracing who I am, and all that came with it.
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