Five Movies To See If You Liked 'Turning Red'
Pixar’s Turning Red came out on Disney+ this past weekend and there has been a lot of digital inked spilled over it. Critical reaction has been strong, boasting a 95% Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes, and we liked it here on OnScreen Blog, giving it 4/5 stars. Audience reaction has been a bit more mixed, with the Rotten Tomatoes audience score at 72%, a 7.1 rating on IMDB, and (sadly) some controversy and backlash from discussion surrounding having the film focused on an Chinese-Canadian teenage girl and how relatable that is (Hogwash, I say).
I love recommending movies, championing the cause of underseen and underappreciated movies, and exposing them to a wider audience. So, if you’re like me, and you enjoyed Turning Red, here are a few other movies you might want to check out that touch on some similar themes.
1. Brave (2012) – Available on Disney+
This may be a fairly obvious one to start off with but Turning Red is not the first time that Pixar has made a movie where a mother-daughter relationship, red hair, and someone turning into an animal are central elements of the plot. Kelly MacDonald’s Mérida is much more rebellious than Mei and butts heads with her mother (voiced by Emma Thompson), but as is the case with Turning Red, both mother and daughter learn a lot about one another by the end of the movie as their relationship changes and matures.
2. The Farewell (2019) – Available on Showtime, Kanopy
Based on a true story, a Chinese family goes to great lengths to stage a wedding when the matriarch of the family is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Chinese-American Billi, portrayed wonderfully by Awkwafina, struggles with the lie that the rest of her family is happy to go along with. This delightful movie is all about the way cultures and generations of family clash. Funny and poignant. It also features a beautiful rendition of a non-Hallelujah Leonard Cohen song, “Come Healing.”
3. Eighth Grade (2018) – Available on Showtime, Kanopy
Directed by comedian Bo Burnham, Eighth Grade might be the cringiest movie of awkward adolescence in recent memory, this film chronicles the last week of Kayla Day’s eighth grade school year. On the cusp of high school, Kayla is trying desperately to fit in, but, more importantly, not stick out for the wrong reasons. Despite her timidness, Kayla’s story is a great encapsulation of what it’s like to be 13 and trying to figure out who you are, basically trying on different personalities and seeing what works and what doesn’t while still trying to be authentically you.
You can read our 2018 review of Eighth Grade here.
4. Lady Bird (2017) – Available on Netflix, Kanopy
Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut is outstanding and was my #1 film of the year back in 2017. This semi-autobiographical story features a very charged and tenuous relationship between Saoirse Ronan’s Lady Bird and her mother, played by Laurie Metcalf. I will go to my grave believing that Laurie Metcalf was robbed of the Best Supporting Oscar that went to Allison Janney for I, Tonya. The mother-daughter dynamic has maybe never been done better than here.
You can read our original review of Lady Bird here.
5. The Edge of Seventeen (2016) – Available on Netflix
I’m not going to lie, there were a lot of quality coming-of-age movies in the 2010s (also check out The Kings of Summer, The Way Way Back, The Spectacular Now, and Booksmart), but The Edge of Seventeen might be my favorite. Hailee Steinfeld stars as Nadine, a 17-year-old who finds herself friendless and adrift in her junior year of college when her best friend start dating her nemesis older brother. She ends up pestering one of her teachers, played by Woody Harrelson, and their back-and-forth banter is a strength of the movie. Nadine is whip smart, but the movie isn’t afraid to make her wrong and unlikeable at moments, very true to the teenage experience. Steinfeld burst onto the scene with True Grit and is now on the Marvel star manufacturing line after the Hawkeye series on Disney+, but for my money, The Edge of Seventeen is the best work she has done to date.
Ken Jones, Chief Film Critic