Mid-Week Watch: Cyrano, Kimi, Turning Red

No matter what you’re in the mood for this week, I have quite the selection on offer. A Rear Window-style thriller, an animated movie about metaphorical menstruation, and a musical set in 17th century France (but no one has the slightest French accent). Let’s go to the movies!

Turning Red: This is the latest Pixar film, the first to be solely directed by a woman, Domee Shi, so of course, they didn’t bother to give it a proper theatrical run in the US and sent it straight to streaming on Disney+. Argh. But seek out this movie immediately. It is infinitely clever, kind, and beautiful, destined to be a part of the classic Pixar canon. And it should be required viewing for anyone who either gets a period or has to deal with people on their period, aka all of humanity.

Set in Toronto (which means you will get to see the CN Tower in the background of nearly every scene), the movie follows Meilin "Mei" Lee (voiced by Rosalie Chiang), a thirteen-year-old Chinese-Canadian girl who is a perfectly normal teenage girl until she suddenly starts turning into a giant red panda any time she experiences strong emotions. It's certainly a fluffy and cute way of reflecting what PMS feels like.

There are a lot of reasons this is happening, having to do with Mei's ancestors, and I won't get into all of that. But what makes this movie so special is how it tackles Mei's relationship with her mother, Ming (voiced by the wonderful Sandra Oh). Mei is moving away from being Ming's little girl and may not embrace all the ambitions foisted upon her, and it captures the fractious tumult that accompanies all mother-daughter relationships as you try to find your own identity and forge your own life path. The movie even brings in Mei's grandmother to highlight the challenging relationship Ming has with her own mother. I don't think there's a single person on this planet who could watch this movie and not instantly relate to all these problematic family dynamics. 

In addition, you have Mei's relationship with her three best friends, a gaggle of girls who are all obsessed with a boy band called 4*Town, and who look out for each other as best friends should. They are kind, supportive, and wonderful, a reflection of the best that teenage friendships can offer, and made me very nostalgic for my childhood girl gang. And the songs by that boy band were all written by Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O'Connell, if you needed any more reasons to enjoy this splendid film. Go forth and revel in it - you will giggle and cry in equal measure, which is the hallmark of a great Pixar movie.

Kimi: The latest from director Steven Soderbergh, this is a tight 90-minute thriller starring Zoe Kravitz as Angela, a woman who works as a data analyst for a company that manufactures a home voice assistant called Kimi (it works like Amazon’s Alexa). When Angela is listening to anonymous data streams received from Kimi devices across the country, she stumbles across one recording where it sounds like a woman may have been sexually assaulted. Perturbed, she starts to seek out more information, and as she delves further into investigating what she heard, things start to unravel in a classic Hitchockian conspiracy.

The added twist is that this movie is set in the midst of the pandemic, and Angela, who was already struggling with anxiety and agoraphobia, has become increasingly unable to leave her house during lockdown. Unfortunately, this investigation is going to push her to face her fears and come to terms with her corporate overlords, and you’ll have to see how it all goes down. Written by David Koepp, this movie is not particularly surprising or inventive, but it offers up a taut thriller and a good central performance from Kravitz. It’s perfect for a streaming release, something to watch on a rainy afternoon when you need to liven up your day. After watching so many three-hour-long movies recently, it was a relief to watch a plot-driven thriller that knew exactly what it wanted to accomplish and did so quickly and efficiently. Sometimes that all you want from your pop culture, you know? 

Cyrano: Set in 17th century Paris, this is the classic tale of Cyrano de Bergerac, the man who longed for Roxanne, but thought he was too repulsive so wooed her through Christian, a handsome intermediary. Written by Erica Schmidt and directed by Joe Wright, the twist here is that Cyrano is played by the wonderful Peter Dinklage, so his physical "deformity" is his dwarfism rather than having a large nose. Also, this adaptation is a musical, which is…challenging. Because Dinklage is a great actor, but he definitely cannot sing.

The other actors do seem to have been cast with more of a mind to musical ability, so there are some good numbers that aren’t as grating to sit through. The music was written by brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner from the band The National, so there's some good stuff there. Haley Bennett, who plays Roxanne, is famous for her debut performance in Music and Lyrics as a teenage popstar, so she acquits herself well, alongside Kelvin Harrison, Jr. as Christian. At one point there’s a splendid war song sung by soldiers played by the actual singers/musicians, Glen Hansard, Sam Amidon, and Scott Folan. But overall, this movie is not revelatory. Everyone is trying their best, but they are dialed up to eleven when a six would suffice. It’s a love story, but the language is terribly heightened and it’s hard to know who to root for when there’s so much deception afoot. It’s all a bit silly until it all becomes a bit tragic, and then the whole thing ends rather abruptly.

The film does have the most gorgeous production design by Sarah Greenwood and costumes by my girl Jacqueline Durran (together with Italian designer Massimo Cantini Parrini). In fact, this movie has a very well-deserved Oscar nomination for its costumes. Even now, as I write this, I am thinking about the ethereal blue outfit Roxanne wears early in the film and I might need to go watch the movie again just for that. I have also just learned that Haley Bennett is Joe Wright's partner, so that might further explain why she is so beautifully shot throughout this film. So yeah. This is a gorgeous movie to look at, but there isn’t much more substance behind it. Dinklage and Bennett are a fine pair, but I wish they had done a modern-day romcom, with no singing, instead of this maudlin tale. It's spring, don't we need more hopeful romantic tales?