How far would you go just to finally feel at ease within your own body? That is exactly where *Saccharine* begins for me, and it is also where the film demonstrates its greatest strength—not merely as a work of body horror, but as a piece that transforms shame, self-image, and that urge to remake oneself into something far more repulsive.
What I appreciated about it is that the film doesn't simply present diet culture and the obsession with beauty as mere themes for the viewer to observe; it truly renders them physical. It turns them into something that takes root inside you, that gets under your skin, and that—at a certain point—ceases to feel like a matter of control, becoming instead something that has completely spiraled out of it. It is precisely for this reason that the similarities to *The Substance* struck me as so effective: that sensation that your own body is no longer the vessel you inhabit, but rather something against which you must wage a ceaseless battle.
Director: Natalie Erika James
Writer: Natalie Erika James
Stars: Midori Francis, Madeleine Madden, Danielle Macdonald
Then there is that other dimension—the one that made the film feel even more unsettling to me: that sense of being pursued, of being unable to shake something off, of feeling that something has latched onto you the moment you crossed a certain line. That is also where *It Follows* came to mind, though this film doesn't merely copy what others have already done; rather, it harnesses that specific energy and channels it into its own aesthetic of the repulsive and its own narrative trajectory.
For me, this is a film that doesn't get absolutely everything right, but it hits the mark often enough to leave an indelible impression on your memory. Primarily because it transforms its central moral inquiry into something that never feels abstract: How far would you go to be prettier, thinner, more desirable... or simply to believe—once and for all—that you are enough just as you are? That is where *Saccharine* achieves a level of excellence that is as unsettling as it is fascinating.
And, in the end, the only thought that lingers is this: "Please, remember to feed Bertha."
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