Slanted (2026) Bleecker Street/Sci-Fi-Horror-Comedy RT: 102 minutes Rated R (language, some sexual material, teen drug use, brief violent content/bloody images) Director: Amy Wang Screenplay: Amy Wang Music: Shirley Song Cinematography: Ed Wu Release date: March 13, 2026 (US) Cast: Shirley Chen, Mckenna Grace, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Fang Du, Elizabeth Pan, Amelie Zilber, R. Keith Harris, Callie McClincy, Sarah Kopkin, Katy Wilson, Nicholas Myers, Elaine Hendrix, Kristen Cui.
Rating: ***
I have a feeling Slanted is going to ruffle some feathers with its open mockery of racism and white privilege. I read a few comments on social media from people who said it made them uncomfortable. Is that not the point of satire? It’s supposed to make you feel a little uncomfortable. I’d say the film did its job.
I can Slanted becoming a cult classic along the lines of Heathers. It’s basically Mean Girls meets The Substance with a little bit of Carrie thrown in for good measure. It’s every bit as warped as it sounds. The protagonist is Joan Huang (Chen, Didi), a Chinese-American teen struggling with her racial identity. She wants nothing more than to fit in with her white classmates so she can achieve her dream of becoming prom queen. She tries to strike up a friendship with head mean girl Olivia (Zilber, Grown-ish) even going so far as to dye her hair blonde. She fails. There’s no getting around not being white.
Joan decides to make a drastic change to her appearance. She keeps getting notifications on her phone from an outfit called Ethnos. It’s a sinister facility headed by a smiling doctor (Harris, Dopesick) who offers a radical solution. He has developed an irreversible surgical procedure that allows recipients to become Caucasian. Unhappy with her current situation, Joan tricks her non-English speaking mother (Pan) into signing the permission form required for minors.
When Joan emerges from the clinic, she no longer looks Asian. She’s been turned into a blonde-haired beauty who now goes by the name Jo Hunt (Grace, Scream 7). Her parents are understandably horrified by their daughter erasing her identity. The kids at school are another story. Almost immediately, Olivia accepts Jo into her exclusive social circle. Joan/Jo finally has a chance at becoming prom queen, but it comes at a price. There are side effects, both physical and psychological. What, did you really think it would turn out any other way?
Written and directed by Amy Wang, Slanted is pretty good as far as feature film debuts go. Sure, it’s not perfect. It has pacing issues and the satire tends to be a bit heavy-handed delivering its message with the subtlety of a jackhammer at times. While under sedation, Joan dreams of a music video for a song singing the praises of being white. It’s a funny bit, but way too on the nose. On the other hand, you have to admire Wang for daring to go there. She has definite potential as a filmmaker. She just needs to work out a few kinks.
As Joan, Chen does a fine job capturing the desperation of a teen trying to fit in with her peers even though they keep rejecting her. She craves acceptance and will go to extreme lengths to get it even if it means losing her best friend (Ramakrishnan, Freakier Friday). As Jo, Grace more or less sells it. Once transformed, Joan/Jo becomes as vapid as those she idolized for years. She nails that part. She falls a little short when it comes to the psychological effects. I was expecting her to lose it big when the grotesque side effects kicked in full gear. It should have been something along the lines of Demi Moore/Margaret Qualley in The Substance. The performance is too reined in for the film’s own good.
Zilber is perfect as the vapid popular girl always bragging about her budding acting career. She instantly makes you hate her character. At the same time, she’s laughable because of her total insipidness. One of the film’s funniest bits is the interior of Olivia’s home. Everything is a shade of white even the food served at dinner. Who says home décor doesn’t reflect the owners?
I must give special props to production designer Julie Chen. It’s amazing. I love how she captures the contrast between Olivia’s sterile home and the warm, lived-in feeling of the Huangs house. Then there’s the clinic. Talk about nightmare fuel. It’s where people go to die while everybody stands around smiling and offering empty platitudes.
It’s rough around the edges, but Slanted gets its point across in an entertaining way. I just wish it had leaned more into the body horror aspect. It needs a little more Cronenberg. For a movie that doesn’t hold back, it feels somewhat restrained. It’s nonetheless watchable.
