Slanted
Final Grrl Horror
No Spoilers Movie Review
Slanted (2026)
Slanted came out in theaters today, and after seeing it tonight with my 13-year-old daughter, I can already say this is going to be one of those movies that catches people off guard. It’s basically Mean Girls crossed with The Substance light, with the whole thing playing like a movie-length Black Mirror episode. The premise is bizarre, the tone is weird in a way that works, and underneath all of that is a story that’s trying to say something pretty sharp about identity, self-worth, and what happens when someone starts believing they would be more accepted if they were someone else. The film was written and directed by Amy Wang and opened in U.S. theaters on March 2026.
The story follows Joan, played by Shirley Chen, a Chinese girl growing up in America who feels completely disconnected from the life around her. After being treated poorly from a young age, she starts to believe that white people have the better life, or at least that they are seen as more beautiful, more accepted, and more worthy. When she gets the opportunity to literally change herself into a white girl, with Mckenna Grace stepping into that transformed version of the character, the movie leans fully into how absurd that idea is, but it still manages to ground it in something real. What starts off almost like a dark teen comedy slowly becomes more uncomfortable and more emotionally pointed as it goes.
One thing I thought the movie did really well was the way it handled stereotypes around white people. It absolutely leans into them, but in a way that feels intentional and ridiculous on purpose. There’s even a moment with a white family eating the blandest all-white meal imaginable with no seasoning, and it’s so over the top that it works as satire instead of just random commentary. That’s what makes it land. The movie is showing us Joan’s warped perception of what whiteness means to her, not trying to make some serious argument that every white family is literally like that. What also stood out to me afterward is that the movie really does not spend its time doing the same thing to Asian, Indian, or Black families. That is not the focus. Joan may hide her food and feel embarrassed by parts of herself around the white kids, but the movie is not built around mocking her culture or turning other cultures into punchlines. It keeps the lens very specifically on the fantasy she has built up around whiteness, and I think that makes the whole thing much more effective.
What worked for me is that Joan never feels like a caricature, even when the movie itself gets strange. She’s beautiful, but she feels deeply disconnected from herself, from where she lives, and from the people around her. You spend a lot of the movie cringing for her because it’s hard watching someone be treated so badly that she begins to believe the problem is who she is. My daughter and I both kept reacting to that because it’s genuinely hard to watch. We were both thinking that we would never treat somebody like that, and it opens the door to a much bigger conversation about the way people get judged and made to feel lesser for things they can’t change.
The acting also really helped sell all of this. Shirley Chen is excellent as Joan and makes every part of her insecurity, desperation, and emotional disconnect feel believable. Mckenna Grace does a great job once the movie shifts into that next phase, and she fits the tone of it without making it feel fake or overplayed. Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as Brindha brings a lot of heart, and the parents, played by Fang Du and Vivian Wu, are both incredibly likable and grounded. Honestly, all of the performances felt believable to me, and that made a huge difference because a concept like this could have fallen apart fast if the acting did not work.
Even though this is rated R, the horror here is pretty mild overall. There is body horror, there is blood, and there are definitely some uncomfortable moments, but this never felt overly gruesome to me. Calling it The Substance light is honestly the most accurate way I can put it. It has some edge, but not so much that it turns nasty or excessive. I actually thought the special effects were really well done for what the movie was going for. They’re not trying to blow the doors off with gore, they’re just there to make the concept feel unsettling enough to work.
The pacing also worked really well for me. I never felt bored, and I never felt like the movie dragged. That matters a lot with a premise like this because it could have easily started to wear thin, but it didn’t. It stayed interesting the whole time, and both my daughter and I liked the characters a lot. Even the parents ended up being very likable, which gave the movie more heart than I was expecting. I don’t know that every adult will love this one since it is very much teens playing these roles and living in that world, but if you go into it understanding that, I think a lot of people will click with it.
What I appreciated most is that the movie doesn’t stop at race as a broad concept and leave it there. It also taps into something more universal about insecurity, self-image, and the feeling that maybe life would be easier if you looked different or fit some impossible ideal. My daughter connected with that too, not from a race perspective, but from the perspective of being a girl and knowing what it feels like to compare yourself to other people or feel judged for the way you look. I think that made this worth seeing together. It gave her a perspective that was important, and it also reinforced the idea that you have to learn to appreciate who you are instead of chasing some fake version of perfection that was never going to save you anyway.
This might not work for everyone, and I could definitely see some people being put off by how blunt or strange it is. It didn’t offend me. To me, it felt like an opportunity to hear a perspective from an Asian American woman director and just let that sit without getting defensive about it. Slanted is weird, funny, uncomfortable, and emotionally sharper than I expected it to be. It kept our attention the entire time, the body horror never overwhelmed the message, and the whole thing felt smart and well put together. For me, this was a solid 4.5 out of 5 ⭐️
No Spoilers Movie Review
Slanted (2026)
Slanted came out in theaters today, and after seeing it tonight with my 13-year-old daughter, I can already say this is going to be one of those movies that catches people off guard. It’s basically Mean Girls crossed with The Substance light, with the whole thing playing like a movie-length Black Mirror episode. The premise is bizarre, the tone is weird in a way that works, and underneath all of that is a story that’s trying to say something pretty sharp about identity, self-worth, and what happens when someone starts believing they would be more accepted if they were someone else. The film was written and directed by Amy Wang and opened in U.S. theaters on March 2026.
The story follows Joan, played by Shirley Chen, a Chinese girl growing up in America who feels completely disconnected from the life around her. After being treated poorly from a young age, she starts to believe that white people have the better life, or at least that they are seen as more beautiful, more accepted, and more worthy. When she gets the opportunity to literally change herself into a white girl, with Mckenna Grace stepping into that transformed version of the character, the movie leans fully into how absurd that idea is, but it still manages to ground it in something real. What starts off almost like a dark teen comedy slowly becomes more uncomfortable and more emotionally pointed as it goes.
One thing I thought the movie did really well was the way it handled stereotypes around white people. It absolutely leans into them, but in a way that feels intentional and ridiculous on purpose. There’s even a moment with a white family eating the blandest all-white meal imaginable with no seasoning, and it’s so over the top that it works as satire instead of just random commentary. That’s what makes it land. The movie is showing us Joan’s warped perception of what whiteness means to her, not trying to make some serious argument that every white family is literally like that. What also stood out to me afterward is that the movie really does not spend its time doing the same thing to Asian, Indian, or Black families. That is not the focus. Joan may hide her food and feel embarrassed by parts of herself around the white kids, but the movie is not built around mocking her culture or turning other cultures into punchlines. It keeps the lens very specifically on the fantasy she has built up around whiteness, and I think that makes the whole thing much more effective.
What worked for me is that Joan never feels like a caricature, even when the movie itself gets strange. She’s beautiful, but she feels deeply disconnected from herself, from where she lives, and from the people around her. You spend a lot of the movie cringing for her because it’s hard watching someone be treated so badly that she begins to believe the problem is who she is. My daughter and I both kept reacting to that because it’s genuinely hard to watch. We were both thinking that we would never treat somebody like that, and it opens the door to a much bigger conversation about the way people get judged and made to feel lesser for things they can’t change.
The acting also really helped sell all of this. Shirley Chen is excellent as Joan and makes every part of her insecurity, desperation, and emotional disconnect feel believable. Mckenna Grace does a great job once the movie shifts into that next phase, and she fits the tone of it without making it feel fake or overplayed. Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as Brindha brings a lot of heart, and the parents, played by Fang Du and Vivian Wu, are both incredibly likable and grounded. Honestly, all of the performances felt believable to me, and that made a huge difference because a concept like this could have fallen apart fast if the acting did not work.
Even though this is rated R, the horror here is pretty mild overall. There is body horror, there is blood, and there are definitely some uncomfortable moments, but this never felt overly gruesome to me. Calling it The Substance light is honestly the most accurate way I can put it. It has some edge, but not so much that it turns nasty or excessive. I actually thought the special effects were really well done for what the movie was going for. They’re not trying to blow the doors off with gore, they’re just there to make the concept feel unsettling enough to work.
The pacing also worked really well for me. I never felt bored, and I never felt like the movie dragged. That matters a lot with a premise like this because it could have easily started to wear thin, but it didn’t. It stayed interesting the whole time, and both my daughter and I liked the characters a lot. Even the parents ended up being very likable, which gave the movie more heart than I was expecting. I don’t know that every adult will love this one since it is very much teens playing these roles and living in that world, but if you go into it understanding that, I think a lot of people will click with it.
What I appreciated most is that the movie doesn’t stop at race as a broad concept and leave it there. It also taps into something more universal about insecurity, self-image, and the feeling that maybe life would be easier if you looked different or fit some impossible ideal. My daughter connected with that too, not from a race perspective, but from the perspective of being a girl and knowing what it feels like to compare yourself to other people or feel judged for the way you look. I think that made this worth seeing together. It gave her a perspective that was important, and it also reinforced the idea that you have to learn to appreciate who you are instead of chasing some fake version of perfection that was never going to save you anyway.
This might not work for everyone, and I could definitely see some people being put off by how blunt or strange it is. It didn’t offend me. To me, it felt like an opportunity to hear a perspective from an Asian American woman director and just let that sit without getting defensive about it. Slanted is weird, funny, uncomfortable, and emotionally sharper than I expected it to be. It kept our attention the entire time, the body horror never overwhelmed the message, and the whole thing felt smart and well put together. For me, this was a solid 4.5 out of 5 ⭐️
Mini Review: Final Grrl Horror No Spoilers Movie Review Slanted (2026) Slanted came out in theaters today, and after seeing it tonight with my 13-year-old daughter, I can already say this is going to be one of those movies that catches people off guard. It’s basically Mean Girls crossed with The Substance light, with the whole thing playing like a movie-length Black Mirror episode. The premise is bizarre, the tone is weird in a way that works, and...