Category: Featured Content

Breaking bread

Woodman’s Artisan Bakery to open storefront in Nashua

Bill Woodman gained a following across the local farmers market scene for his European-style artisan breads, first selling in Salem in 2018 before branching out to six markets by the following summer. Nearly four years later, Woodman is expanding his startup bread business into a storefront, giving him his own permanent spot to bake as well as an opportunity to serve coffees, teas, sandwiches and grab-and-go pastries.

Woodman’s Artisan Bakery is due to open in the coming weeks on the corner of Amherst and Sunapee streets in North Nashua — it’s in the former spot of Great Harvest Bread Co., which has sat vacant since December 2019. Upon coming into the space, Woodman connected with former Great Harvest owner Jeremy St. Hilaire, who welcomed him to the neighborhood, shared his own experiences, and helped go over the basics of its unique multiton 48-pan oven.

Rows of salted pretzels from an artisan bakery
Photo courtesy of Woodman’s Artisan Bakery.

Woodman’s breads are 100 percent scratch-baked and range from various country ryes and sourdoughs to flavored options like a cranberry walnut and an Italian focaccia with Parmesan and rosemary. His product line also includes traditional French butter croissants and pain au chocolat pastries, as well as soft blueberry scones and lightly salted German-style pretzels.

A Manchester native, Woodman attended Springfield College in Massachusetts before transferring to Southern New Hampshire University to study culinary arts. From there, he would hold multiple kitchen jobs over the years, and it was while as a cook at the RiverMead, a retirement home in Peterborough, that he got the opportunity to attend bread baking intensive courses at King Arthur Flour in Vermont, thanks to an educational reimbursement program.

“I had always had an interest in breads, but no one ever knew much to teach me about them,” he said. “I did the program at King Arthur, came back to the retirement home and then was doing fresh bread for them every day. … People were going crazy about it to the point where we ended up setting up a sale with three or four different types of bread. So that went over very, very well.”

In May 2018, Woodman applied to become a vendor at the Salem Farmers Market. Dave Hippert, a longtime friend of his who owns Sal’s Pizza in Hooksett, agreed to let him use his oven after hours, where he currently bakes his breads and pastries.

“He closes down at the end of his day, so 9 or 10 o’clock at night, and then I go in, mix up my doughs and bake throughout the night into the mornings. Then from the morning to the afternoon I go out to the markets and sell my bread off,” he said. “So without him, none of this would’ve been possible, especially just with the volume that I’m able to pull out of there.”

As a result, nearly all of his items at the market have only just been out of the oven hours earlier.

“That’s one of those things that makes a big, big difference is that quality and freshness,” he said.

croissants laid out on a cooling rack
Photo courtesy of Woodman’s Artisan Bakery.

Once his Nashua storefront opens, Woodman will leave the kitchen at Sal’s, but he still plans to attend a few farmers markets per week. Currently he’s in Concord on Saturdays and Salem on Sundays, and he’ll pick up a third market in Bedford on Tuesdays when it resumes in June.

In addition to Great Harvest’s oven, Woodman has an electric Bongard deck oven from Germany he purchased a few years ago through a mutual connection with a Portsmouth chef.

“It’s kind of like your Lamborghini of ovens, so to speak,” he said. “Anything that’s got a real nice crust and a chewy crumb is going to come out of there, because you get that steam injection. … You get a little bit of water, which keeps the dough pliable enough so that it grows and expands properly, but then when it starts evaporating off, you start basically caramelizing the sugars on the surface of that dough, and it gives you that color and crispiness that you want.”

Woodman plans to get into baking ciabattas and baguettes, breads he said he hasn’t regularly done in a few years. He’ll also be able to produce all of his other artisan breads on an even larger scale than before, thanks to his newfound 24/7 access. One of his flagship products is called the “Yukon Dave” sourdough — it’s named after a farmers market customer who gifted him a sourdough starter that originated in Alaska sometime in the 1960s.

On the retail side, Woodman will have a display case featuring grab-and-go pastries as well as drip coffee sourced from A&E, a USDA-certified organic roaster. Eventually, he said, he’d like to add cappuccinos and lattes and plans to offer pizzas, sandwiches and other lunch items.

Woodman’s Artisan Bakery
An opening date is expected in the coming weeks for the bakery’s storefront. In the meantime, find owner and bread maker Bill Woodman at the Downtown Concord Winter Farmers Market (7 Eagle Square, Concord) on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon, and at the Salem Farmers Market (LaBelle Winery Derry, 14 Route 111, Derry) on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Where: 4 Sunapee St., Nashua
Hours: TBA
More info: Visit woodmansartisanbakery.com, or find them on Facebook @woodmansartisanbakery and Instagram @woodmans.artisan.bakery

Featured photo: Photos courtesy of Woodman’s Artisan Bakery.

11 features, 5 shorts

NH Jewish Film Fest offers in-theater & virtual screenings

This year’s New Hampshire Jewish Film Festival is combining the benefits of virtual screenings — reaching more people in more places, for example — and hosting in-person screenings too, to bring back that festival vibe that’s been missing for the past two years.

“It’s been a journey, that is for sure,” festival co-chair Pat Kalik said of holding the event during the pandemic. “We did get some benefits from going virtual, but we missed, of course, the community feeling of seeing a movie in the theater and then having the discussion after.”

This year’s festival, which runs March 31 to April 10, will feature five in-theater screenings, two of which will have post-screening discussions. Virtual attendees will have a 48-hour window to watch each movie any time during the festival, and there will be virtual screenings of four of the in-theater films as well after the festival ends.

The festival features independent and foreign films from 12 countries. Kalik said they start screening films in July and view about 50 before picking their final lineup. She said they try to pick different kinds of films, from dramas to documentaries, to appeal to all tastes.

“Our goal is to bring these films to the community, films that would not come to the independent theaters in New Hampshire,” Kalik said. “Some of the films are subtitled — some people won’t go to subtitled films, but we try to get a mix. … My hope is that everyone will give these types of films a try.”

One of her favorites is the documentary that’s going to open the festival at Rex Theatre.

“I thought The Automat was a fascinating film, and that’s going to be our opening night at the Rex in Manchester,” Kalik said. “[At Automat restaurants] you would put money into a wall of windows, and behind each window was the food you wanted to buy. This is a film about the history of the Automat.”

The closing film is Cabaret at Red River Theatres in Concord. Typically the festival features newer films; in this case, it’s celebrating Cabaret’s 50th anniversary. The screening will be followed by a discussion with film buff Zachary Camenker of Concord.

“The film kind of broke the glass ceiling 50 years ago in ways that people weren’t expecting,” Camenker said.

Cabaret, which is about Berlin nightlife during the Nazi rise to power, won eight Academy Awards. Camenker said it’s the winningest film that did not win best picture in Oscar history; it lost that award to The Godfather.

Still, “It’s one of those musicals that has stood the test of time,” he said. “It’s a good reminder of where things were a century ago as opposed to where they are now.”

Another film that looks back at a difficult time in history is “Upheaval: The Journey of Menachem Begin.” The documentary explores the life of the Israeli prime minister.

Director Jonathan Gruber of Black Eye Productions in New York said he didn’t know much about Begin before he started working on this project.

“I didn’t realize how instrumental he was in Israel’s becoming a state,” Gruber said. “I was just impressed with him as a leader. He never enriched himself through his position.”

Begin was a controversial leader, though, which Gruber saw firsthand in his interviews. He said he heard some criticism that the film is slanted favorably toward Begin, while others have thought the opposite.

“Begin does not get a free pass in the film,” Gruber said. “We annoy everybody.”

Gruber, who was born in Israel, was able to get all of his interviews done in person overseas just before the pandemic started. He used a third-camera angle for some of the film.

“The content is so powerful but I also visually wanted to make it arresting,” he said.

Gruber will discuss the documentary via Zoom on Tuesday, April 5, at 7 p.m.

With the exception of Cabaret, Zoom will be used for all film discussions.

“I think we’ve learned a lot because of [the pandemic], and we’re going to take advantage of it in the future, but it’s not going to replace the traditional film festival where you can go to the theater and bond and eat and drink,” Kalik said.

New Hampshire Jewish Film Festival
When: March 31 through April 10
Where: Various locations in the state and online
Cost: $12 per in-theater ticket or per virtual household ticket
More info: For festival pass information, movie trailers and more, visit nhjewishfilmfestival.com.

Here are the films according to festival descriptions.

In-theater screenings

The Automat

Thursday, March 31, 7 p.m. at The Rex, Manchester

Documentary, 2021, U.S., English. Before fast food, one American restaurant empire was unstoppable. Experience the untold story of the Automat with this documentary film starring Mel Brooks about the popular 1950s restaurant chain that served its meals in vending machines.

Following the screening, director Lisa Hurwitz will discuss her film via Zoom, and Automat collector Steve Stollman will join the conversation.

Fiddler’s Journey to the Big Screen

Sunday, April 3, 1 p.m. at 3S Art Space (Portsmouth), The Rex (Manchester) and Showroom (Keene)

Documentary, 2022, U.S., English. Narrated by Jeff Goldblum, Fiddler’s Journey to the Big Screen captures the humor and drama of film director Norman Jewison’s quest to recreate the lost world of Jewish life in tsarist Russia and re-envision the beloved stage hit as a wide-screen epic.

The Un-Word

Thursday, April 7, 7 p.m., Red River Theatres, Concord

Narrative, 2020, Germany, German with English subtitles. In this German satire, tempers flare after a Jewish student is goaded by Muslim classmates into a schoolyard brawl, injuring an Iranian and a Palestinian student. A hopelessly naive teacher arranges a summit with the fuming parents and spineless principal. But her do-gooder attempts at peacemaking, complete with Palestinian and Israeli flags decorating the snacks, expose her own misguided beliefs.

Tiger Within

Sunday, April 10, 1 p.m., Red River Theatres, Concord

Drama, 2020, USA, English. Multiple Academy-Award-winner Ed Asner, in one of his last performances, stars in this tender story of the unlikely friendship between Samuel, a Holocaust survivor, and Casey, a skinhead teen runaway. Despite their respective traumas and initial mistrust of one another, they form a powerful bond that yields a sense of family and mutual support.

Cabaret

Celebrating Cabaret’s 50th Anniversary!

Sunday, April 10, 3:30 p.m., Red River Theatres, Concord

Musical/Romance, 1972, U.S., English

Starring Liza Minelli, the musical about Berlin nightlife during the Nazi rise to power won eight Academy Awards.

Following the screening, New Hampshire educator and film enthusiast Zachary Camenker will lead a discussion about the history and impact of the film a half century later. (This screening is in-person only and does not have a virtual option.)

Virtual-only screenings

200 Meters

Drama, 2020, Palestine, Jordan, Qatar, Italy, Sweden (Arabic, Hebrew, English with subtitles). Mustafa and his wife live 200 meters apart in villages separated by the Israeli border wall. One day he gets a call every parent dreads: His son has been injured in an accident. Rushing to cross the Israeli checkpoint, Mustafa is denied on a technicality. But a father’s love won’t give up, and he will do anything to reach his son.

Apples and Oranges

Documentary, 2021, Israel (Hebrew, English with subtitles). A wave of foreign volunteers came to Israel in the 1960s through 1980s to work on a kibbutz, a communal village centered around agriculture. During the ’80s, the war in Lebanon and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict forced volunteers to decide whether supporting the kibbutz meant supporting the state of Israel.

On Monday, April 4, at 7 p.m., Director Yoav Brill will discuss his film and reflect on the changing nature of the volunteers as Israel’s geopolitical situation evolved.

Greener Pastures

Drama, 2020, Israel (Hebrew, English with subtitles). Dov, a widower, is forced by his family to move to a nursing home. He’s broke since he lost his pension, and he blames the state. When Dov notices that all his fellow residents smoke legal medical cannabis, he realizes that weed can be his salvation — selling it, not smoking it.

Neighbors

Drama, 2021, Switzerland, France (Kurdish with English subtitles). In a little village on the Syrian-Turkish border in the early ’80s, a 6-year-old Kurdish boy experiences his first year in an Arab school and sees how his little world is radically changed by absurd nationalism.

Persian Lessons

Narrative Feature, 2020, Russia, Germany, Belarus (German, French, Italian, English and Persian with English subtitles). Occupied France, 1942. Gilles is arrested by Nazi SS soldiers alongside other Jews and sent to a camp in Germany. He avoids execution by swearing to the guards that he is not Jewish, but Persian. This lie temporarily saves him, but Gilles gets assigned a life-or-death mission: to teach the Farsi language to Koch, the head of camp, who dreams of opening a restaurant in Iran once the war is over.

Upheaval: The Journey of Menachem Begin

Documentary, 2020, USA (English) Prime Minister Menachem Begin was a tireless fighter for the Jewish people. He was, at the same time, a controversial leader.

On Tuesday, April 5, at 7 p.m. Director Jonathan Gruber will discuss his documentary on the life of Menachem Begin.

Short films (virtual only)

Beefies

Comedy Short, 2021, U.S. (10 minutes, English). Josh wants to find his late mother’s “beefies” recipe for Passover but must reconnect with his estranged brother to do so.

Ganef

Short, 2020, U.K. (14 minutes, English with Yiddish phrases), London, 1962. 6-year-old Ruthie discovers Lynn, the cleaner, is a thief.

Masel Tov Cocktail

Short, 2020, Germany (30 minutes, German, Russian with English subtitles). A Russian-Jewish teen in Germany offers a comic take on modern Jewish life.

The Shabbos Goy

Comedy Short, 2019, U.S. (7 minutes, English). God literally forbids Chana to turn off her vibrator gone rogue.

The Tattooed Torah

Animated Short, 2021, U.S. (21 minutes, English, Hebrew). True story of the rescue and restoration of a Torah from Czechoslovakia.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

News & Notes 22/03/24

Covid-19 update As of March 14 As of March 21
Total cases statewide 300,511 301,308
Total current infections statewide 821 911
Total deaths statewide 2,417 2,436
New cases 860 (March 8 to March 14) 797 (March 15 to March 21)
Current infections: Hillsborough County 196 242
Current infections: Merrimack County 67 65
Current infections: Rockingham County 142 151
Information from the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services.

Covid-19 news

On March 16, the state Department of Health & Human Services announced in a press release that its 11 state-managed Covid-19 vaccination sites will permanently close on March 31. Additionally, four of the seven mobile vaccination teams will demobilize that same day. The announcement comes just one day after health officials permanently closed all of the state-run testing sites. Vaccines are still easily accessible through medical providers, pharmacies, urgent care centers and mobile vaccination clinics, the release said.

State health officials announced 53 new positive Covid test results on March 21. The state averaged 119 new cases per day over the most recent seven-day period, a 4 percent increase compared to the week before. Hospitalizations continue to be low, at just 30 statewide as of March 21 — that’s the fewest since Aug. 2 of last year.

Child advocate plan

Last week the state Office of the Child Advocate released its 2022-2025 Strategic Plan, a collaboration of members of the community and state leaders. Child Advocate Moira O’Neill said in a press release that forming the plan was an “opportunity to engage with the broader community to co-create a road map for deeper impact and lasting system reform,” and input was received from children, parents, foster parents, providers, attorneys, government leaders and the Oversight Commission on Children’s Services. According to the release, the plan was developed after looking at the office’s progress and talking to the community about its future vision, mission, values, priorities and needed changes. Focus groups and interviews showed that the four-year-old Office of the Child Advocate is “respected, reliable and transparent,” the release said, but it is still not well-known throughout the state. Another issue is an unbalance of independent oversight with collaborative relationships; both of those problems could be attributed in part to not having enough staffing, the release said. The Strategic Plan has four goals: continue to be responsive to complaints, incidents and opportunities to improve the state’s support and protection of children; expand public knowledge of the office as a resource to understand and advocate for children; invest in building the capacity of the office to support the safety and well-being of children; and strengthen and expand relationships with system partners based in trust, collaboration and impact. According to the release, O’Neill has completed her four-year term of service and is waiting for the governor to appoint a replacement.

SleepOut

On Friday, March 25, hundreds of people in the Granite State will sleep outside for Waypoint’s eighth annual SleepOut, which raises awareness and funds to help end youth homelessness in New Hampshire. According to a press release, the funds will support Waypoint’s new overnight youth shelter in Manchester and its drop-in resource centers in Concord and Rochester, as well as help sustain its existing services. This year’s event will be held remotely, with sleepers spending the night outside at a place of their choosing and sharing the experience virtually. The online event will also be livestreamed on the agency’s Facebook page, allowing members of the community to show their support even if they are not registered sleepers. Last year, Waypoint had nearly 1,500 contacts with youth who were on the streets and offered services like survival aid, basic needs relief, educational support, job and life skills training, driver’s ed, access to mental health services and more, the release said. Visit waypointnh.org.

Oil tank leaks

The New Hampshire Insurance Department has received numerous questions from consumers regarding insurance coverage for cleanup costs associated with heating oil spills. According to a press release, those costs can exceed $100,000, and there are no admitted insurance carriers in the state who cover home heating oil spills. However, the state Department of Environmental Services has two programs to help consumers who have home heating oil tanks that have leaked or are in danger of leaking: the Safetank Program and the Petroleum Reimbursement Fund Program. The Safetank Program provides financial assistance to income qualified homeowners — up to $2,250 to upgrade or remove and replace an above-ground oil tank and up to $2,500 to remove an underground tank. The Petroleum Reimbursement Fund Program reimburses costs incurred by DES-required cleanup at eligible properties where a petroleum release has occurred from a tank system, with coverage of up to $500,000. The Insurance Department encourages homeowners to upgrade or replace their heating oil tanks before a release occurs, the release said.

A presentation and conversation called “The Russian Invasion of Ukraine – Why Did it Happen? What Are the Global Implications?” will be held Tuesday, March 29, at 6:30 p.m. at the Goffstown Public Library, according to a press release. Registration to attend in person or virtually is required at https://bit.ly/GPLUkraine329.

Last week, Memorial, Central and West high schools in Manchester hosted their first-ever Sports Nights, where representatives from high school and middle school athletics and youth sports leagues in the city came together to help students find a sport they love. According to a press release, the event also highlighted the schools’ current student-athlete stars who have signed with colleges and universities to compete for them next year.

Daytime road work on the Route 101 Bridge replacement project in Bedford has begun and, according to a press release, there will be alternating one-way traffic between 8:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Route 101 from Twin Brook Lane to Joppa Hill Road. Construction will continue in the area throughout the summer and fall, the release said.

Jersey Mike’s Subs locations in New Hampshire — most locally in Londonderry, Hudson and Plaistow — are supporting the 2022 Special Olympics USA Games through its 12th Annual March “Month of Giving” campaign. According to a press release, customers can make a donation at any Jersey Mike’s to help local Team NH athletes get to the Games, happening in June in Orlando. On March 30, Jersey Mike’s will have a “Day of Giving,” when the restaurants will give 100 percent of the day’s sales — not just profits — to the Games, the release said.

Saying goodbye

Fifteen years ago, as a new board member of the Animal Rescue League of NH, I pulled into the parking lot one day and met the sweetest beagle out for a walk. I went home and began negotiating with my husband, anxious for our 2-year-old son to have a canine companion to grow up with. He reminded me we were leaving on vacation. We agreed if the dog was still there when we got back, we could bring it home. The dog was adopted in the interim, but a few weeks later I received a call that he had been returned.

Potter and his sibling had both arrived at the shelter as strays. Their owner had been called but declined to pick them up. The shelter staff estimated Potter’s age as 1 at the time. When I saw Potter’s patience with our curious toddler, I knew he was meant for us. That patience never wavered with our son, nor with the next beagle I brought home, nor with the addition of a Brittany spaniel, and certainly never with our grandchildren.

This is not to say Potter didn’t have his quirks. UPS deliveries were a challenge as he assumed responsibility for judiciously guarding the front door from any drivers of brown trucks. A few years ago I noticed Potter no longer reacted to the sound of the UPS truck, and we soon realized he had gone completely deaf.

As he entered his senior years he slowed down remarkably, spending his days sleeping in his favorite chair, only rising (punctually) for his four meals a day. As one aging issue developed into another, Potter received his very own pill box so we could better manage his medications. We arranged our schedules to accommodate mealtimes and meds. He became increasingly anxious and restless, frequently pacing throughout the night, symptoms of doggie Alzheimer’s.

The past several months, we have struggled with when to let him go. At a recent vet visit, Potter became aggressive with the vet staff. I knew then that it was time, his pain and confusion causing atypical behavior for him. Potter did his job well, and the little boy who grew up with him is now a 17-year-old teenager. I will be forever grateful that he chose us all those years ago to be his forever home. His steadfast love and companionship made our family whole. He has more than held up his end of the deal and it is time to bid him farewell. May you rest in peace, our sweet boy.

Shape shifter

With a new album, Samantha Fish hits Manchester

Until New Year’s Day delivered omicron to the world, Samantha Fish was looking forward to a European tour in March. Like so many of her plans over the last two years, it was postponed. But the continent’s loss is America’s gain, as Fish is now doing a co-headlining tour with the Devon Allman Project. A St. Patrick’s Day stop in Manchester is, ironically, a replacement date for a canceled Allman Betts Band show at the Palace Theatre.

Singer-guitarist Fish’s latest album, Faster, is another step away from the blues sound that defined her early days, earning her supporters like Buddy Guy. “Hypnotic” evokes mid-’80s Prince from its first notes, a synth-y stew that also hints what David Bowie’s collaboration with Stevie Ray Vaughan might have produced had it lasted more than one album.

Produced by Martin Kierszenbaum (Lady Gaga, Sting), the new record’s most engaging departure is “Loud.” A rock/hip-hop mashup featuring rapper Tech N9ne, who like Fish hails from Kansas City, it’s a solid genre-bender. In a recent phone interview, Fish sounded amazed that she’d lured “Eminem’s favorite all-time rapper” to work with her.

“When I first met Martin, we went to Tech’s studio to work in one of the writing rooms,” she said. “Martin just sort of brought it up offhand, like, ‘It would be really cool to have Tech on a record.’ I just kind of laughed it off; I never thought he would in a million years. Then, he actually went and got him.”

The new record is a buoyant, danceable celebration, but it didn’t begin that way; Fish started writing in the pandemic’s early days, fresh off a narrow exit from an overseas tour that had her spending nearly two days in airports.

“I went through a lot of feelings and different phases of just dealing with this terrible thing that was going on,” Fish said. “All I could do was really go sit in my house and write.”

That’s how every record begins, Fish said, but “the introduction of it is never what it ends up being.”

She shifted gears when her new producer entered the frame. “When I met Martin, I just kind of got this really infectious energy, enthusiastic and encouraging and very positive overall,” she said.

His mood compelled Fish to “write songs that were fun, that made people feel good. I wanted to have an energetic show; I wanted to come out jumping around after this pandemic. I feel like this record really serves that kind of an approach, and it feels nice to be able to own that.”

Along with producing, Kierszenbaum co-wrote several tracks and played on most of the record, while Rob Orton (Lana Del Ray, Sting, Mumford & Sons) did the mixing.

“I just feel like it has this level of … I don’t want to call it gloss, which sounds like a bad thing, but it’s got sparkle to it that I don’t know has been present in my past work. I really admire Martin for his ability to pull that out.”

Fish started her own record label a few years back and has produced two records by Jonathan Long and another one for Nicholas David.

“My job as a producer is to help the artists facilitate their vision and to make it cohesive and also get it done on time and under budget — you know, like the boring part,” she said. “I like helping people shape their vision, help them get what they want, and that’s been kind of a fun journey for me.”

For the upcoming show Fish expects a well-rounded evening. Allman’s band will include two special guests: harmonica player and vocalist Jimmy Hall of Southern rock stalwarts Wet Willie and veteran blues guitarist Larry McCray. Each band will play a full set, and they’ll end up together at evening’s end.

“It’s going to be a collaborative event, but also evenly showcasing our bands and our music,” Fish said. “You know, the best of all worlds.”

Devon Allman Project with Samantha Fish Band & River Kittens
When: Thursday, March 17, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Palace Theatre, 80 Hanover St., Manchester
Tickets: $35 and up at palacetheatre.org

Featured photo: Samantha Fish. Photo Credit Kevin King.

Turning Red (PG)

Turning Red (PG)

A 13-year-old girl discovers that strong emotion transforms her into a red panda in the Pixar animated movie Turning Red, a movie about puberty, moms and daughters, friends and, occasionally, Canadian-ness.

The kids at Lester B. Pearson School hustle to earn loonies in this 2002-era Toronto. Add that to the bits of late-1990s, early aughts culture — Tamagotchis, Backstreet/’N Sync-y boy bands — and Turning Red is a smorgasbord of delightful little surprise moments nestled in some top-tier storytelling.

Thirteen-year-old Meilin Lee (voice of Rosalie Chang) enjoys being a rules-following straight arrow who crushes it at school and is a dutiful daughter at home. Or has she just convinced herself she enjoys it because she has always been so eager for her mother’s (voice of Sandra Oh) approval? But her mother doesn’t understand about 4*Town, the boy band that has Mei and her friend group — Miriam (voice of Ava Morse), Abby (voice of Hyein Park) and Priya (voice of Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) — all aflutter. Mei herself doesn’t understand her buddies’ lusting over Devon (Addie Chandler), the 17-year-old who works at the local convenience store whom Mei thinks “looks like a hobo.” “Yeah, a hot hobo,” Abby says. Yuck, is Mei’s opinion, until all of a sudden one day it very much isn’t and she feverishly fills a notebook with sketches of herself and Devon, who is sometimes a merman in these drawings.

When Ming, Mei’s mom, finds the sketches, she marches a mortified Mei right down to the store so Ming can yell at a clueless Devon about how Mei is just an innocent little girl and he had better stay away and a bunch of other things that make the world sort of fall in on Mei in a way that is as hilarious as it is horrifying (so much of this movie about this drama-and-zits phase of life is hilarious and horrifying). After a night of absolute agony over this never-to-be-recovered-from embarrassment, Mei wakes up to find that her body has become unrecognizably hairy and stinky and big.

Which, like, who hasn’t been there? But in Mei’s specific case, she has become an actual polar-bear-sized red panda.

“It’s happened already?” says Mei’s dad, Jin (voice of Orion Lee), when Mei’s parents find out about her transformation. It turns out that the family, which runs a temple dedicated to their ancestors, doesn’t just have a symbolic connection to red pandas but an actual one. A long ago-ancestor gained the ability to turn herself into a red panda to protect herself and her daughters, a power passed to every woman in the family since then. Now living in modern days, the women find the fur, the size and perhaps the anger an annoyance, as Ming explains, and they undergo a ritual to harness their panda-ness so that sudden emotional changes don’t lead to a tail and ears popping out. (There is a whole graduate dissertation to be written about this movie’s very clever handling of women and their relationship with anger.)

Mei learns that while extreme emotions can bring on the red panda, calming feelings of love and acceptance can help her turn back into a girl (one whose dark hair is now red). What Mei doesn’t tell her mother is that those peaceful feelings come not from her parents but from her group of besties, a sign that she is growing into her own person, apart from her mother. Her buddies, when they learn about the panda, aren’t repelled by the gross monster Mei feels she is and tell her they’ll be there for her no matter what — especially when “what” turns into a surprising money-making opportunity. The other kids at school are charmed and delighted by the big fuzzy red panda and will fork over their hard-earned loonies for pictures of the panda and panda merch — the perfect way for the girls to earn the money they need to buy tickets to the upcoming 4*Town concert.

Remember the end of Pixar’s Inside Out when the “puberty” button showed up on the control panel inside the emotional control center of the 12-year-old protagonist? Turning Red thematically picks its story up from there, with the fully realized, well-rounded and imperfect person that is Mei suddenly finding herself with all these new emotions and desires and thoughts. It isn’t that she’s “becoming a woman,” the blech-y phrase the movie repeats just enough to drive home the goofiness of putting all that on either getting your period or seeing a boy band, but that she’s finding new facets of herself and trying to figure out how to integrate them into who she has always understood herself to be. And, sorry to spoil the ending for you, kids, but this is basically a thing that continues for forever, as Mei’s growing up and growing apart from Ming means that Ming is also seeing some part of her identity change. What is a delight about Turning Red is that we don’t have to get all in to Ming’s head and her adult issues to see this; this movie (unlike, say, Toy Story 4 or Cars 3 or all the other movies that feel like middle-aged people working out their midlife identity crises) stays focused on Mei and her various relationships as she sees them. And it does this without making Ming either all correct or all wrong. This is another one of those Pixar movies where there is no “bad guy” per se, no person doing evil but more just a group of people, each person with their own Stuff, working through some difficulties.

Before I make this sound like a total afterschool special (which, actually, this would be a great addition to some health class about “your changing body”), Turning Red is a boisterous good time with lots of smart observations about teen life, pop music, parental expectations, the appeal of kittens. I feel like the physicality of the red panda comedy would probably make this movie fun for even middle-elementary kids (maybe 9 or so and up). And the lessons about watching your kid become their own awesome self, however painful the loss of their younger version, and the movie’s overall joy — not to mention some truly beautiful animation — is a good time for an older audience as well. A+

Rated PG for thematic material, suggestive content and language, according to the MPA on film ratings.com. Directed by Domee Shi with a screenplay by Julia Cho & Domee Shi, Turning Red is an hour and 40 minutes long and is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures on Disney+.

Featured photo: Turning Red.

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