Matthew's Journal

Another film from the Hugo shortlist, this is a coming-of-age drama about a girl who turns into a giant fuzzy red panda when she experiences strong emotion, something that starts happening about the time she turns 13.

It has quite a cringy start, which I didn't like, but it does have some genuinely funny moments, and while I felt that it mostly ticked off the usual coming-of-age themes, it wasn't too heavy-handed with them (except perhaps the "overbearing mother behaves thus because she couldn't never keep up with her mother's expectations" trope). You have to not think too hard about the plot, though, or it starts making less sense.

An early scene where Mei first turns into a panda and her mother is sure it's just her first period makes no sense, for example: she must surely know that it's likely (given the crashing noises and references to being a bloated red monster) that her daughter has manifested the red panda spirit that every other female family member does! And I wasn't quite sure that "we have to do a ritual at the right time of the month to stop the female family members going crazy" was a totally unproblematic metaphor! During the final "battle", the panda-forms mostly seemed to be pretty in control, so I was a bit surprised at how readily everyone gave them up again; and I think there was a lack of pay-off from the scene where panda-Mei looks like she might actually hurt Tyler at his party.