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Saccharine Review: Gross Anatomy
The greatest danger of social media is how it reinforces our own private fixations. When medical student Hana (Midori Francis, Good Boys, Grey’s Anatomy) looks at her feed, half of it is body positive influencers telling her that this is what a real woman looks like. The other half is skinny girl peer pressure dropping not-so-subtle hints that she needs to lose weight so she can get her arm through a potato masher handle, because apparently that’s the measurement of thin enough.
In supernatural body horror Saccharine, Hana starts listening to the “you can never be too thin” side of her feed, but since hitting the gym isn’t working and rather than getting a GLP-1 prescription, the obvious solution is to start taking pills made from the incinerated cremains of Big Bertha, the cadaver that she’s cutting up as part of her classes. It’s a ridiculous idea that speaks to the often infuriating nature of Saccharine, a film that never seems sure whether it wants to make serious points about society’s attitude to weight or just use it to creep the audience out.
Writer/director Natalie Erika James’ feature debut, Relic, dealt with intergenerational family trauma, and that’s a theme that recurs here. Hana’s dysfunctional relationship with food comes from an equally dysfunctional relationship with her perpetually nervous mother (Showko Showfukutei) and her unseen father (Robert Taylor). With a shrine in the family living room, she’s also used to living with the dead, which may explain why she adapts so quickly to Big Bertha appearing in mirror surfaces and occasionally kicking sweet snacks her way.
Hana, like the film itself, is much less interested in really exploring why she’s being haunted than in watching dropping weight to impress her fat camp coach/crush, Alanya (Madeleine Madden, Dora and the Lost City of Gold, The Wheel of Time). Maybe that’s why the elements of ghost story, body horror, trauma drama, and gore sit awkwardly together rather than melding into something more substantial.
While some of the themes may feel undercooked, there’s no denying that the look of the film is well done, especially in the practical effects of human anatomy. Even at her largest, Hana isn’t that big, and so subtle prosthetics add a few pounds in the places about which she is most self-conscious. Alternately, there’s little subtlety in the more scientific depiction of Big Bertha’s cadaver, which becomes increasingly internally exposed as Hana and her classmates take their pounds of flesh in the name of science. Corpses in cinema are often oddly clean and pristine inside, like draining the blood suddenly turns the chest cavity into an old-fashioned wax anatomical Venus. Audiences never see what 50% body fat, that visceral fat that binds to organs, really looks like, but Big Bertha’s corpse feels real, organic, and something to be respected.
Yet that dedication to physiological accuracy can’t fill that thematic void. James never really tackles Hana’s underlying psychological traumas, and the fact that she never seems that bothered by being haunted undercuts much of the tension. A third act turn into more graphic and gross body horror is like being served a disappointing dessert straight after a starter that got your mouth watering.
At a time when so many people are turning to weight loss drugs under a barrage of advertising, and social media corporations are deliberately manipulating those feeds to make you feel bad about yourself, Saccharine seems like a squandered opportunity to really explore the societal horrors of weight loss. Equally, having Hana’s fat friend, Josie (Danielle Macdonald, Patti Cake$, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You), be the one who tries to save her from her weight loss obsession just seems obvious. Combined with the treatment of Big Bertha’s ghost as a source of disgust, and Saccharine never seems as compassionate about extreme weight gain and body dysmorphia in women as it thinks it is. It’s like Jillian Michaels directing an adaptation of Stephen King’s Thinner, and even some good scares can’t disguise the bitter taste it might leave in your mouth.
Editor’s note: Due to editing errors, a previous version of this review was published with the wrong star rating and missing a sentence. The review has been updated.
Saccharine2026, R, 112 mins. Directed by Natalie Erika James. Starring Midori Francis, Danielle Macdonald, Madeleine Madden, Robert Taylor, Showko Showfukutei, Annie Shapero.
⭐⭐
Rating: 2 out of 5.The post Saccharine Review: Gross Anatomy appeared first on The Austin Chronicle.