‘Slanted’ Review: Satirical Body Horror About Assimilation and Beauty Engages, But Never Gets Under The Skin

In his acidic 1931 Satire, Black No More, The Writer George Schuyler Imagines a World Where Black People Can Undergo An Experimental Surgery to Become White. The depigment Procedure, Invented by An Oily Scientist, Becomes Extremely Popular. People are eager to esCape discript and reap the Benefits of Whitness. The Novel Teseories About Assimilation and the Color Line. If everyone was of the Same Race, Racism and Its Atendant Violence would be eliminated, rail?

I COULDN’T STOP THINKING OF SCHUYLER’S Novel While Watching Amy Wang’s Assured Directorial Debut Slanded. The Film, WHICH Premiered at Sxsw and Won the Narrative Feature Competition, Has A Similar Premise. It Follows Joan Huang (Shirley Chen of Sundance Darling DIDI), a chinese-american Teenager desperate to be prom Queen. She Lives in A Kind of AnyWhere, USA, A SURRREALIST Version of Main Street Cleverly Conjured by Wang and Her Production Designer Ying-Tet Julie Chen. In this Town, The Prom Queen Has Always Been A White Blonde with Blue Eyes. Their Photos Hang in A Hallway at the High School, Taunting Joan Walks by Walks by. Joan’s Friend Brindha (Never Have I Ever‘s maitreyi ramakrishnan in a brief but excellent Turn) Thinks this could be the year to disrupt that trend, but joan isn’t as confident. WHEN The Opportunity to Become White Presents Itelf, The Ambitious Teen Doesn’t Think Twice.

With this compelling set-up, Wang (The Brothers Sun, From scratch), who directed and wrote the screenplay, crafts an Engaging satire that flirts with Body Horror. She Explores Immigration and Assimation, Meditating on How The Alienation of the Former Makes Way for the Cruel Realities of the Latter. Slanded Will Inevitably Draw Comparisons to Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (Body Horror for Social Issues), Mean Girls (Humorous Distillation of Contemporary High-School Culture) and DIDI (Earnest Reflections on First- and Second-Generation Immigrants), But Black No More Is The Film’s Real Antecedent. Similar to the Protagonist of Schuyler’s Novel, Joan Undergoes the ProCedure Because She Believes that Whiteness Promises A More Fortunate Existence.

But WHEREAS SCHUYLER UPEENDED THAT BELIEF WITH SCORCHED REPRESENTATIONS AND PESSIMICAL CONCLUCLUCLUSIONS, WANG TAKS A GENTLER AND CONTEMETIMES more more PRODICTABLE APRACH. Slanded is blunt, but it could be more biting. The Film Stugggles in a Similar Manner to Many Contemporary Satires That Want To Send Up an Sentimentalize.

Even if Slanded Doesn’t Always Succeed on the Level of Satire, Wang Is A Confident Director. There a number of accountPlished set pieces in the Film, including one involves salad Bowls and the plastics-eesque popular Grace (Young Sheldon), Who Plays Joan After The Procedure.

Slanded Starts in 2015 with a young Joan (Kristen Cui) Arriving in America with Her Family and Feeling humanized on the first day of school. After Kids Make Fun of Her Eyes and Mock Her Lunch, Joan Sees Assimilation as Her Only Path to Survival. She Realizes She Can Achiev This by Become Promit Queen, A Concept She Discovers After Schcoovers After Schoool while A Janitor. While Her Father Mps of Floors, Joan Stumbles Into The Gym, Whore Prom Is Being Held. She’s immediatally enthralled by the glamour of a didcorated recreational Space and the attraction of given to the Crown Blonde.

Roughly Seven Years Later, We See Joan Getting Ready for School. Her Room is a Shrine to White Celebrities, from Taylor Swift to Sabrina Carpenter, and She spends Mornings Pinning Her Nose with a Clothspin in an Attempt to Elongate. Joan Spends A Lot of Time Online, Too, and Renders Herself Unrecognizable with Layers of Filters. Wang Takes Care to Establish The Routines of Joan’s World Before Getting to The Twisted Heart of this Beauty Horror. We Seie How The Young Woman Admires Her Facher But Has No Patience for Her Mother (Vivian Wu). We Also Bear Witness to Where Shebs in Her High School’s Social Stratification.

After Joan Answers A DM From a Brand Called Ethnos, Slanded Kicks Into Gear. An enticing promocial offer – they will die your hair Blonde at no charge – Leads Her to A Medical Office Located in the Back of a Barbershop. Joan is so enamored of the results, which get her noticed by the Cool Kids, that she returns a few day laster for the full surgery. Some of the Movie’s Strongest Moments Take in the Ethnos Clinic Run by Willie ( Hexes Poetic About the Benefit of the Surgery and Shows of the Teen A Series of Humorous Video Testimonials Corroboration His Points. Like Dr. Crookman in Black No MoreWillie insits that joan’s life will be better.

And it is, at least for awhile. JOAN, NOW JO HUNT AND PLAYED by Grace, Attracts at Minute She Walks Out of the Clinic. THESE SCENES, WHICH CONFIRM the IMMEDIACY OF HER NEWLY GAINED PRIVILEGES, HAVE the SAME ENERGY as Early Key & Peele Skits.

But The Middle of Slanded Lags Compared to the Steady Energy of the Beginning and the Propulsive, More Thriller-Like Pace of the End. It’s Here, As Jo Lives Her New Life, That Wang Could Have Bigger Risks With The Humor, Getting More Skin-Deep About the Cost of Jo’s Assimilation Dreams. Jo’s New Life Includes A Friendship with Olivia (Amelie Zilber), The MOST Popular Girl at Their School, While Her Other Relationships Suffer. There Are Some Poignant Moments Between Jo and Her (Horrified) Parents As Well As Brindha, Who Feels Betrayed. But A Darker Turn, Especialyly Linked to Jo’s Obsession with Become Promit Queen, Might Have Enlivened the Film’s Middle by Heightening the Stakes.

As the Teen Gets Closer to the Big Day, Sheals with Unexpectioned Side Effects of the Surgery. HER “OLD” Face Triers to Return, Causion Her “New” face to sag. In order to Mainten Her Image, Jost Literaly Peel Bits of Her Skin Off. Slanded Edges Into Body Horror As the Teen’s Anguish Subsumes Her. She becomes so precoupied with hringing her molting face from the World that A New Level of Desperation Sets in. Although Slanded Doesn’t Consistently Committee to the Same Feverish Urgency, It Does Manage to Explore a vulnerable Kind of Heartbreak.