Turning Red

Director: Domee Shi
Year Released: 2022
Rating: 1.5

Thirteen-year-old Mei (voiced by Rosalie Chiang) is a ridiculously overconfident kid who thinks she has it all "figured out" but her world gets up-ended after her mother Ming (Sandra Oh) discovers some "lewd" drawings (of her and a teenage boy) and humiliates her - the next day she wakes up as a big and puffy red panda (not a bug!), which - as it turns out - is the family curse.  From a visual standpoint, the Pixar team does not disappoint (the pandas are adorable) and I'm glad I brings up the (dangerous) practice of "tiger parenting" ... but the Ming character goes beyond anything even reasonable - almost to the point of being psychotic - with a Jason Voorhees-like determination to emotionally destroy her own child.  Maybe young teens will find something of substance to take away from this, but the message, for me, was better summarized in Cyndi Lauper's four minute music video for "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun."