Slanted
Review by Ryan Michael Painter
Looking back, high school feels less like a pinnacle and more like a necessary evil. A diploma is far more than a participation trophy; it’s a survival badge of honor.
Slanted throws us back into the fray of adolescence. Is it worth the PTSD?
104 Minutes, Rated R
Written and directed by Amy Wang
Synopsis:
Joan Huang idolizes the popular girls and dreams of being prom queen, but fears the only way to win is to look like all the past queens whose portraits line her high school halls. Enter Ethnos: a shady cosmetic surgery clinic that makes people of color appear white. Joan undergoes the procedure and wakes up a beautiful blonde destined for the crown, but at what cost?
Joan, a teenage Chinese American, just wants to be prom queen. Is that too much to ask? In the world of Slanted, if you aren’t blonde and fit it’s an impossibility. Embarrassed of her parents, resentful of her ethnicity, and driven to extremes by insecurity and envy, Joan turns to an experimental surgery that will allow her to pass as white. Joan doesn’t consider the consequences. And there are consequences aplenty.
Slanted features all the traditional high school tropes and pushes them to the extreme. Being mean won’t get you anywhere. Popularity requires a special kind of viciousness and queen bee Olivia Hammond is as cruel and manipulative as it gets. Nonetheless, Joan desperately wants Olivia’s approval regardless of the cost. Slanted is exaggerated, but the underlying sense of teenage hopelessness is incredibly real.
Throughout the narrative Joan, who transforms into Jo after her surgery, makes all the wrong choices. She betrays those who love her unconditionally for a chance at relationships that can only be described as transactional and vapid. Slanted is a nightmare long before the elements of body horror are incorporated into the plot.
Ultimately, Slanted is more mean than Mean Girls, less extreme than The Substance and more rewarding than FX’s The Beauty. It is a formula that is far more effective than I was expecting. This isn’t a timid afterschool special. When Slanted wants to make a point it frequently goes for the jugular. I suspect some will say it doesn’t go far enough and others will disagree and suggest that it goes too far. I like where it lands.
For most of the film the performances are fairly basic. In the final act Mckenna Grace, with some help from some freaky prosthetics, gets to really lean into the teenage hysterics. In these moments director/writer Amy Wang pulls back the campy feel of the film to allow the horror of the situation to really take hold.
I’ll be interested to see how audiences react to the film. The ending, which I enjoyed, will likely raise a few eyebrows.
Curious? If so, Slanted is absolutely worth a look.
Slanted stars Shirley Chen, Mckenna Grace, Amelie Zilber, Vivian Wu, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, and Fang Du and is in theaters March 13, 2025
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