Slanted (2026)
Directed by: Amy Wang
Premise: A Chinese American teenager (Shirley Chen) dreams of becoming the prom queen. She undergoes a medical procedure that transforms her into a blonde white woman (Mckenna Grace).
What Works: The best part of Slanted is the story’s first act focusing on Chinese American teenager Joan and her parents (Vivian Wu and Fang Du). Joan wants to be part of the high school in-crowd but she feels marginalized by her ethnicity. The early portion of Slanted convincingly portrays teenage social anxiety and the way it comes between Joan and her parents. They are an immigrant family and Joan is caught between the two worlds. The tension between Joan and her parents is simultaneously cringe inducing and very real. The moviemakers get the way parents and teenagers talk past each other, how teenagers can be cruel to their parents, and the guilt this causes. After Joan undergoes her procedure, she experiences side effects which are presented through some gnarly makeup effects.
What Doesn’t: Slanted plays as a mashup of The Substance and Mean Girls with elements of Carrie. This film goes beyond homage. Slanted blatantly repeats the characters and story beats of Mean Girls and the fanciful concepts of The Substance but it is inferior to both of those movies. The moviemakers attempt to coast on the novelty of the conceit but it’s already familiar and in this case not done very well. In the opening of Slanted Joan is played by Shirley Chen and in the latter part of the movie she’s portrayed by Mckenna Grace. The two actresses are not convincing as the same person. They don’t share behavioral ticks or other tells that indicate a consistent personality. A lot of elements of Slanted don’t make sense. For instance, after Joan has her procedure she returns to school under a new identity, simultaneously passing herself off as a newly enrolled student while slipping into her old schedule. No one wonders where Joan went. Every thematic and political element of Slanted is cliché and incomplete. Everything the film has to say about racial assimilation and teenage angst is on the nose and superficial. None of the story elements or concepts are followed to a meaningful conclusion and in the end the movie just stops. The political message of Slanted is undercut by the casting of Shirley Chen. She’s a good actress but she’s also very American and conventionally attractive; she’d fit right in with the popular kids.
Bottom Line: Slanted copies elements of better films but it fails to do anything interesting or original. The film’s big idea is a cliché and the concepts aren’t put to any good use.
Episode: #1091 (March 22, 2026)