Author-director Natalie Erika James’ newest movie Saccharine feels as well timed because it might be, even when the director didn’t essentially intend for that to occur.
The psychological horror movie tackles weight reduction, food plan tradition, obsession and habit. Watching the movie, it might be honest to imagine that James would possibly’ve felt impressed by the current return of the early aughts’ outlook on weight reduction and the rise of GLP-1 medicines, nonetheless, the filmmaker chalks it as much as an sadly evergreen dialog.
“I always knew I wanted to create a film or write a story exploring this kind of subject matter, which had a lot to do with how I was brought up, but certainly in the early 2000s — there were those tabloids where bodies were being torn apart,” the filmmaker tells The Hollywood Reporter on a current Zoom. “It felt like there was a time when we stepped away from that [diet culture], but in a way I feel like it’s just been lying dormant or cultures swinging in certain ways.”
Filmmaker Natalie Erika James.
Courtesy
Within the movie, actress Midori Francis performs Hana, a medical scholar who turns into terrorized by a sinister drive after partaking within the newest weight-reduction plan fad — consuming human ashes. James says the movie isn’t a direct response to the present second, however that issues have develop into much more “insidious” attributable to social media exhibiting what solely tabloids beforehand did.
Saccharine is much from the primary movie to make use of physique horror to investigate the sweetness requirements in fashionable instances — 2024’s Oscar-winning The Substance was a cultural second in and of itself. James and Francis each perceive the distinctive place that the style has in telling tales like this, even when audiences may not anticipate the style to be main this dialog. “Horror is amazing at externalizing what’s internal and allowing you to play with quite extreme or surreal imagery to depict that,” notes the filmmaker.
Francis agrees. “That was my initial reaction to reading the script, that this is not the vehicle I would instinctively think to tackle this issue, and yet it works so well,” the actress says.
Francis as Hana in Saccharine.
Courtesy of IFC Movies
The actress discovered herself holding onto the kernels of fact within the story, even when issues appeared outlandish. “No matter how otherworldly or absurd things got, it was always rooted in the feelings of being in the grips of compulsion or obsession or body checking,” she says. “How it can sometimes feel, when you’re dealing with a mental battle or struggle or addiction, nobody sees what’s going on, but it’s so loud inside your own brain.”
“I loved how loud parts of the movie are to distract and contrast the internal pressure that goes on inside one’s head at times, even the dopamine sequences,” says Francis, whose movie makes use of surreal imagery to depict the dopamine-fueled highs that may come together with binging.
Each James and Francis have witnessed memorable and sudden reactions to the movie. James notes that it’s straightforward to neglect how “visceral” physique horror may be. “Someone in our Sundance screening apparently passed out and then had to leave,” she says. “I didn’t expect that it would be to that extreme.”
Francis additionally famous how audiences reacted to her after seeing her character on display. “I’ve been doing a lot of Q&As after, and it’s interesting to see people feel a little uneasy by my presence,” the actress says. “After the credits role, I think, ‘Are they scared of me?’”
The actress remembers a member of the family hoping for a cheerful ending, one thing that James admits Francis requested her about to start with.
Both approach, the actress is clearly pleased with the ultimate story — she continually praises James and admits she’s solely curious about horror when there’s some extent to it. “Eating disorders [and] addiction [are] all things very personal to me, personal to afflictions shared by my family. I knew that whoever wrote this script that there was an authenticity there, a real voice and it was bold,” she says.
Francis simply would possibly admire boldness probably the most. She provides, “Nat has that in spades.”
Francis as Hana in Saccharine.
Courtesy of IFC Movies
James knew the movie was all the time going to be difficult for some viewers. “It’s just confronting to even talk about it openly, or even depict binging on screen… It’s just a very intense thing and certainly requires trigger warnings,” the director says.
Whereas the movie doesn’t have an precise set off warning that seems onscreen, James has been clear about its material. She explains that Saccharine just isn’t essentially the movie that these at their darkest level or combating these matters ought to be watching.
James additionally speaks to the suggestions they’ve acquired of the selection to have menace within the movie being a bigger character. “I think you have to see it through Hana’s very distorted lens,” she says. “The growth of the ghost is her own projection of her fears and those fears are due to her childhood, but also internalizing pressures from the culture that she lives in, which is very fatphobic.”
The director explains that there’s a really actual weight stigma that exists in society and that attributable to that it’s typically instructed that being in a bigger physique is someway an ethical failing. “I hope that people just go beyond the surface reading of that and look at what journey Hana is actually on to unpack those beliefs within herself as well,” she says.
As for Francis, she believes that Hana is lacking the purpose and is afraid of the flawed factor. “Hana [is] complicit in this societal belief that the worst thing in her life could be to be ending up in that larger body,” the actress says.
“Ultimately the worst thing is Hana,” she provides. “She, and all of the shame inside of her she doesn’t address, is the monster at the end of this movie.”
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Saccharine is now taking part in in theaters and begins streaming on Shudder on July 24.
