An insecure Chinese-American teenager undergoes experimental surgery to appear white, hoping to secure the prom queen title and peer acceptance.
Slanted Ratings & Reviews
- cultfilmlikerMarch 13, 2026Those body proportions sure didn’t stay the same! You’ve experienced the theme of the film before but not with this extent of body horror and black humor! An absolute blast! Mean Girls x The Substance with a dash of Get Out at the end Didn’t realize the title of this film was derogatory until the film started! SMALL SPOILER ⬇️ The karaoke song absolutely destroyed me. Full star bump Watched at Warren Regal 21 Currently Ranked #5/24 in 2026 Ranked
- Hipster ZOMBIEMarch 15, 2026Slanted is what happens when the high school savagery of Mean Girls collides headfirst with the grotesque body-horror identity spiral of The Substance. It’s sharp, uncomfortable, and often very funny about things that probably shouldn’t be funny. That tension is exactly the point. At the center of the film are two terrific performances from Shirley Chen and McKenna Grace, who play the same character at different stages of a deeply misguided quest for social acceptance. Chen plays Joan, a Chinese American girl who looks at the glossy hierarchy of blonde, all-American high school royalty and decides the only logical solution is full assimilation. Not cultural assimilation. Total assimilation. If the popular girls are blonde and white, then that’s what she’ll become. Enter Grace, who embodies Joan’s absurd and unsettling “upgrade” with pitch-perfect smugness. The film’s central joke is that Joan achieves exactly what she thinks she wants, only to discover that becoming the idealized version of someone else doesn’t magically solve the problem of being yourself. Director Amy Wang walks a tricky tonal tightrope. Slanted is constantly flirting with parody while also brushing up against genuine tragedy. The satire about the unspoken rule that “if you’re white, everything must be right” could easily feel like a tired lecture, but Wang wisely treats it less like a sermon and more like a dark comedy. The jokes land because the film recognizes the absurdity of the premise rather than trying to bludgeon the audience with it. Where the movie actually has something interesting to say is in its depiction of immigrant families. Joan’s parents arrived in the United States as adults, already formed, already comfortable with who they were. They never had to survive the Darwinian nightmare that is the American school playground. Their daughter does. And that gap between generations becomes the film’s most quietly effective idea. Slanted isn’t subtle. It’s not trying to be. But thanks to Chen and Grace, it’s wickedly entertaining while poking at the strange contortions people perform to belong.
- NiztradamusMay 4, 2026Who says racism can't be fun? In all seriousness, as someone of mixed origin I get it. Now I never wanted to change my race but I get being caught between worlds growing up and Slanted does an excellent job of portraying that feeling of feeling lost. That beng said... the depection of the world in this movie is really a far stretch from reality. Amy Wang let her pen write and just gave herself into unhinged world design that makes A Birth of a Nation look like it was written by the NCAA. There is literally a song about how good it is to be white and how easy life is as a white person. It was so unhinged and ridiculous I couldn't stop laughing throughout the whole movie. I am not sure if this was intended. Give it a shot. It's fun, it's ridiculous and one of the most unhinged stories we have seen this past decade.
- Kevin WardJuly 1, 2025If Mean Girls and The Substance had an Asian baby and raised her in a society ruled by white standards of beauty. Thought it was a little slow going at first but it takes off once our Prom Queen hopeful decides undergo her physical transformation. It’s funny and poignant but also features a lot of cool smaller details that make it worth watching with keen eye for deeper symbolism—the gradually changing aspect ratios, the names of the businesses in the background, the school mascot—it’s incredibly entertaining in its own but also incredibly exciting to see such a strong directorial voice from a debut feature. Would love to see what Amy Wang does next.
Slanted Trivia
Slanted was released on March 13, 2026.
Slanted was directed by Amy Wang.
Slanted has a runtime of 1h 44m.
Slanted was produced by Amy Wang, Mark Ankner, Trevor Wall.
An insecure Chinese-American teenager undergoes experimental surgery to appear white, hoping to secure the prom queen title and peer acceptance.
The key characters in Slanted are Joan Huang (Shirley Chen), Jo Hunt (Mckenna Grace), Olivia Hammond (Amelie Zilber).
Slanted is rated R.
Slanted is a Comedy, Drama, Science Fiction film.
Slanted has an audience rating of 6.6 out of 10.
Slanted has made $906K at the box office.