Aarcflick

A Chinese-American high school student undergoes a hypothetical race-changing procedure that allows her to experience life as a white girl in Amy Wang’s SXSW-winning comedy. If high school is a popularity contest—the premise of misplaced priorities driving screenwriter-director Amy Wang’s SXSW-winning satire on assimilation, titled *Slanted*—then Chinese-American senior Joan Huang (Shirley Chen) might be justified in renouncing her cultural heritage for a shot at being crowned prom queen. That is the Faustian bargain Wang posits in a provocative comedy—which doubles as a thought experiment—that veers squarely into *The Substance* territory when Joan agrees to a racial transformation so radical and thorough that Wang replaces the original actress with another (Mckenna Grace) to embody her new identity for the remainder of the film. Director: Amy Wang Writer: Amy Wang Stars: Shirley Chen, Mckenna Grace, Amelie Zilber Tackling complex questions of identity head-on, *Slanted* draws on Wang...