Film Review - Saccharine
Images courtesy of Maslow Entertainment.
In 2020, Australian filmmaker Natalie Erika James explored the horrors of dementia in her directorial debut Relic. In 2026, she returns to the world of elevated horror, this time tackling extreme diet culture in the gross and gooey Saccharine.
Hana (Midori Francis) is a medical student who is deeply self conscious and unsatisfied with her life. Despite appearing well, she has an extremely unhealthy relationship with her body and food, which manifests in excessive cravings and unrelenting diets. She’s also crushing on fitness instructor Alanya (Madeleine Madden), who she tries to impress by joining her weight loss program. When Hana bumps into an old friend named Melissa (Annie Shapero), she is introduced to a mysterious weight loss pill that has rendered her former school mate unrecognisable. ‘The Grey’ is pricey, but allows you to eat whatever you want while still shedding kilos. After a quick lab test, Hana discovers that the unknown powder in the pills is human ash. Rather than stop right there, she disturbingly cremates human body parts from the student cadaver lab to make her own supply. However, this immoral decision comes with a price, as Hana soon realises she is being stalked by an sinister entity that feeds off both her cravings and insecurities.
Instant comparisons will be made to Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance – not only thematically, but stylistically and visually. Saccharine effectively centres on body horror in a similar way by making use of grossly detailed prosthetics, stomach-churning sound effects and uncomfortable close-ups that capture food being consumed in the most grotesque way possible. In a film where food is, on some level, the villain for our protagonist, it is sickeningly visceral in the same way as the human organs Hana steals from the lab. Essentially, you won’t be wanting a snack during this movie. What separates Saccharine from The Substance is its more focused approach towards diet culture, which is timely given the popularity of weight loss drugs such as Ozempic and Mounjaro. It does a solid job of highlighting the vicious cycle that comes with body dysmorphia, eating disorders, and the mental battle they can create. Hana is clearly fine as she is, and has a lot of support from her mother (Showko Showfukutei), friend Josie (Danielle Macdonald), and even Alanya. But that is all drowned out by the entity that is literally forcing Hana to consume herself.
Where Saccharine unfortunately falls flat is its lack of substance (pun not intended) regarding Hana’s character and history. Only once do we properly meet Hana’s morbidly obese father Travis (Robert Taylor), who cannot move and spends his days in the darkness in front of the television. It is clear that Hana has some resentment towards him because of this, and that he is likely a contributing factor to her weight loss obsession. However, the script does not meaningfully explore Hana's past in this subplot nor reveal many insights into how she came to this point. With the absence of this, it is sometimes difficult to fully connect or relate to Hana and her experience.
Ultimately, Saccharine will be remembered for its horrifically macabre and unnatural imagery, but perhaps not for long due to the script’s shortcomings.
Follow Alyssa on Letterboxd and Instagram.
Saccharine is screening in cinemas from Thursday the 9th of July. For tickets and more info, click here.