GROWING UP IS A BEAST.

Toronto, 2002; 13-year-old Meilin tries to hide the fact that whenever she’s upset or excited she turns into a big, red panda. The director behind the charming, Oscar-winning 2018 short Bao made her feature debut with a film inspired by her experiences growing up in Toronto, steeped in Chinese traditions and early 2000s preteen culture. A typical conflict between an overprotective mother and a teenager who wants a taste of the grown-up world is successfully balanced with Meilin’s wacky attempts to hide the furry side of herself. An enjoyably original and heartfelt portrait of a very dramatic period in every girl’s life.

2022-U.S. Animated. 107 min. Color. Produced by Lindsey Collins. Directed by Domee Shi. Screenplay: Julia Cho, Domee Shi. Music: Ludwig Göransson. Voices of Rosalie Chiang (Meilin Lee), Sandra Oh (Ming Lee), Ava Morse (Miriam), Hyein Park, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Orion Lee.

Trivia: Co-executive produced by Pete Docter and Dan Scanlon. Three songs performed by the film’s boy band were written by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell. 

Last word: “The pitch was always about magical puberty, and they also knew Domee from ‘Bao’. That’s the benefit and the curse of working at Pixar, is that everybody knows you. It’s not like you can come in and hide in your directorial debut […] I don’t think there was any delusion that she was going to tell a pretty tame and right-down-the-middle story of puberty. As a result, we put it all in there. Granted, all the specifics were different, but the intention and the boldness was in there in the very first screening.” (Collins, Looper)

IMDb