‘Slanted’ review: SXSW-winner is a teen body horror based on ethnicity

Dir/scr: Amy Wang. US. 2025. 104mins 

A dark, poignant satire about assimilation and female beauty standards, Slanted stars Shirley Chen as a Chinese-American teenager who dreams of becoming prom queen — and plans to literally remake herself in order to win the crown. Earning SXSW’s Narrative Grand Jury Prize, writer-director Amy Wang’s feature debut juggles genres to illustrate the distressing degree to which immigrants try to integrate themselves into a white American society that treats them as outsiders. The film’s weaving of broad comedy, biting commentary and body-horror is sometimes awkward, but always thoughtful.

Wang lets the script’s jokes and shocks hit with blunt force

Slanted’s ensemble includes rising stars Mckenna Grace (the recent Ghostbusters pictures) and Maitreyi Ramakrishnan (Never Have I Ever). The catchy premise is sure to inspire comparisons to The Substance and Mean Girls, and Wang’s observations about body image, sexism and racism make this a timely narrative. Even if theatrical prospects may only be modest, positive reviews should help raise visibility. 

Chen plays Joan Huang, a teenager who moved from China to America with her parents as a child and quickly idealised Western standards for attractiveness. (She litters her bedroom wall with cutouts of smiling white female celebrities, crafting a vision board of impossibly flawless beauty to which she aspires.) Envious of her school’s popular white girls, especially the gorgeous Olivia (Amelie Zilber), Joan discovers a mysterious company named Ethnos, which offers ’ethnic modification’ that will transform her into a blonde white bombshell. Without a moment’s hesitation, she signs up for the procedure, becoming Jo Hunt (Grace). 

Ostensibly, Joan’s desire to be Jo is prompted by her ambition to be named prom queen — a title the teen struggled to win while campaigning as herself. But as Slanted develops, it becomes clear that the crown was merely a symptom of the character’s profound hunger to be accepted. Wang incisively examines the daily racist microaggressions that Asians and others experience. Slanted eschews subtlety when it takes aim at how adverts and popular culture prioritise white faces and white perspectives, leaving Joan perpetually feeling unworthy and unwelcome.

Viewers are advised to overlook the questionable logic behind Joan’s surgical procedure, which cannot be reversed. For instance, precisely why Ethnos hasn’t attracted more media attention — especially since the company can apparently remake people in just hours— is left unanswered. Also, once Jo starts showing up at school, hardly anyone — save for Joan’s one true friend, Brindha (an amusing but underused Ramakrishnan) — seems concerned that Joan has vanished. But plausibility issues are, perhaps, beside the point, considering the story is mostly just a springboard for Wang’s cultural critique. 

Quickly, Jo insinuates herself with Olivia’s snooty clique, determined to win Olivia’s endorsement for the prom queen title — and maybe even land her first boyfriend. (A rickety plot point explains that, because Olivia will be away shooting a Hollywood production, she herself will be ineligible for the crown.) But as much as this teenager might be able to fool others into thinking she’s cool, Jo still feels like she still does not belong around her popular white classmates. That self-loathing only intensifies once she discovers that the Ethnos procedure is not foolproof, a narrative development that allows makeup artist Sarah Graalman to effectively alter Jo’s countenance in upsetting ways. 

Some of Slanted’s twists play out predictably — this is hardly the first teen film in which a quest for popularity turns out to be a mixed blessing — but Chen’s sweetness and vulnerability are nicely paired with Grace’s panic and regret. Wang lets the script’s jokes and shocks hit with blunt force, displaying a confidence that Joan has failed to discover in herself. Even when Slanted becomes surprisingly bloody, the writer-director ensures that the anguish of the immigrant experience courses through every frame. As Joan’s parents, Vivian Wu and Fang Du convey a touching helplessness as they try to lift up their sensitive daughter — her transformation into Jo triggers anger and despair that is movingly depicted.