Turning Purple
Kirk DeMicco’s growing-up-kraken comedy reminds us of other, better films like it, but it really is harmless.
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken
Directors: Kirk DeMicco, Faryn Pearl • Writers: Pam Brady, Brian C. Brown, Elliott DiGuiseppi
Starring [English]: Lana Condor, Toni Collette, Annie Murphy, Jane Fonda, Sam Richardson, Coleman Domingo, Will Forte
USA • 1hr 32mins
Opens Hong Kong July 6 • I
Grade: B-
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Meet Ruby Gillman (Lana Condor, To All the Boys I've Loved Before), a “normal” teenaged girl who we meet in a kinetic morning routine montage in which she admits to her obsession with rules – loves ’em, can’t get enough – and proudly calls herself a mathlete. Her over-protective mom Agatha (Toni Collette) harbours a dangerous family secret, leaving her easy-going dad Arthur (Coleman Domingo) to be the primary support-system. At school we meet her diverse and slightly kooky “squad” – Margot, Trevin and Bliss – and the dreamy skater boy Connor (Jaboukie Young-White, Strange World) she tutors. Ruby’s most pressing issue at the moment is convincing Agatha to let her go to prom with her squad, which Agatha absolutely forbids. You see, Ruby, and all the Gillmans, is a giant kraken, the legendary sea monster and bane of sailors, hiding on land as a human. One foot in the water and it’s all over – and prom is on a boat.
Sound familiar? It should. Not only does Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, contain the skeleton of every teen coming-of-age movie ever, it’s a dead ringer for Pixar’s Turning Red from 2022, about a girl with a squad who turns into a giant red panda with the onset of puberty. Sure, Ruby Gillman isn’t as on the nose with its menstruation allegory, and it lacks cultural specificity, but swap out prom for a boyband concert, and skaterboy for a cool 7-Eleven clerk and you’ve got the exact same teen girl monster metaphor movie.
If you missed Turning Red…
Turning Red may have beaten Ruby Gillman to the punch if not to screens – it went straight to Disney+ – but that big screen treatment means very little given the bland, soft-edged images in director Kirk DeMicco’s latest; sorry to body-shame, but Ruby and the krakens are kind of homely, and I hate those round teeth. DeMicco is sailing safe waters here, having had a hit with The Croods, which was about a dad trying to insulate his family, and in particular his rebellious daughter, from the perils of the outside world. But there’s something awkward about Ruby Gillman’s painfully chipper pictures and blue-tinged spaces. As an actual squid-lizard dragon thingy, the DreamWorks Animation crew has given Ruby a rubbery physicality that may make mobility sense, but does nothing to illustrate Ruby as person. Or kraken. Or per-ken. And are we tired of oversized facial features and meth pupils yet?
That said, there are some low-key smart moments in Ruby Gillman, and making the little mermaid the Big Bad is among the best. The new girl at school, Chelsea (Annie Murphy, the awful Jane in the latest Black Mirror), shows up to perform as catalyst for Ruby’s Act II personality turn (there’s always a moment when the squad is dumped for something/someone new before the realisation of how wrong that is sets in) and in this story, she’s no Ariel. It’s the most charming, subtle middle finger Disney’s likely ever gotten. Jane Fonda as GrandmaMAH, the Warrior Queen of the Seven Seas is, well, Jane fucking Fonda. You can hear the superiority in her voice. And it’s always nice to see three generations of women band together to save the day (yeah, that was in Turning Red, too).
All the other expected beats are well represented, including the mass destruction (emotional, career, geographic, property) wrought by Ruby’s maturation and ultimate acceptance and forgiveness from and by all parties. To be totally fair, kids grow up fast, and the same mostly girls, but all kids, that would have responded to Turning Red a couple of years ago have aged out. There are always kids around that need to see they’re not really that weird – and I’m not that kid anymore. If you ask me, the mother of all coming-of-age tales is Ginger Snaps, but Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken is hard to bash for its innocuously well-intentioned and valid messaging, no matter that message has been floated in Luca, Encanto, Moana, Brave, How to Train Your Dragon, Sing, Shrek… you feelin’ me here? This was never supposed to be Fritz the Cat, but surely there are other lessons kids need to learn aside from embracing who they are? But if you have to explain what a kraken is to a kid, the film may stoke an interest in Norse mythology. That’s never a bad thing. — DEK