Saccharine (2026) – Review | Prepare To Change Your Relationship To Food

Saccharine walks a tightrope as it navigates being fat, body positivity, and the line separating what is unhealthy and what is simply feeding a natural hunger.

ByAmari Allah Hours Posted on Hours Updated on

[Unless Said Otherwise] Spoiler Alert: This summary and review contains spoilers.

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“Saccharine” Film Details

  • Director(s): Natalie Erika James
  • Writer(s): Natalie Erika James
  • Runtime: 1 Hour(s) and 52 Minutes
  • Public Release Date (In Theaters): May 22, 2026
  • Genre(s): Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi, Young Adult, LGBT+
  • Content Rating: Rated R
  • Primary Language: English
  • Images © of / Courtesy Of Independent Film Company

Movie Summary

Hana is a medical student out in Melbourne, Australia, with loving friends, a brilliant mind for medical science, and parents who are, sometimes, a challenge to be around but by no means hard to love. But, while platonic and familial love are stable in Hana’s life, romantic love isn’t. It is never said because Hana is a bit chubby, but you can tell something is rocking the confidence she innately has. Which is why, when given a pill that is said to cause you to drop weight rapidly, comes into Hana’s life, she is skeptical but willing.

However, she didn’t think the side effects would be supernatural.

Cast and Characters

Hana (Midori Francis)

  • Character Summary: Hana is a medical student who has friends, loving parents, and seemingly is doing well in school. However, lack of love doesn’t make everything secondary, but as the one thing without progress, it does stick out.

Review and Commentary

Highlight(s)

Completely Removes The Male Gaze [83/100]

Throughout the movie, only two men have speaking lines. That is Hana’s father and a peer who is working on a cadaver with her, who does make an ill-placed comment. However, his role is so small that I had to dig through my memory of the movie to remember he existed.

This is noted as a highlight for it removes a lot of the usual conversations regarding women and their weight, never mind flips it and shows it from a queer perspective. That, as much as some may romanticize the idea of being queer would make dating and relationships easier – it doesn’t. The same insecurities come with you and can make putting yourself out there, with another woman, in Hana’s case, hard.

And in some ways, it can feel healing to know that certain things are universal and no matter the gender or sexuality, there is a desire, secret or open, to feel wanted and not to have easy-to-name reasons why you may not be desirable.

How It Handles Hana’s Internal Issues With Her Weight [83.5/100]

Hana has an Asian mom who, as you’ve likely seen in other media, maybe experienced in real life, makes comments about Hana’s face and body. To note, it is out of love, especially since Hana’s father is obese to the point that, for shame or to track, Hana’s mom has a camera in the kitchen – pointed at the fridge.

But Hana is also someone born in the modern age. So for every challenge there is to prove how skinny you are, there is someone preaching body positivity to counterbalance it. This leads to a journey that can be challenging to watch. Partly, the challenge comes from seeing Midori Francis in prosthetics made to present her as fat. However, there isn’t a push to make it woe is me, no one likes or loves me because I’m fat.

What Natalie Erika James, the writer and director, presents is someone who knows weight is a factor in romantic life, and in general. The girl Hana likes, she is kind to her, softly pressures her to join her multi-week challenge, a project for school, but doesn’t really cross any lines until Hana is skinny.

The supernatural being we see, even when Hana goes from 80 kg (176 lbs) to 45 kg (99 lbs), still haunts her. The woman reminds us that, no matter how Hana may physically change, internally, she is just the same. She has a bad relationship with food because of her parents; her relationship with herself isn’t all that great either; and while she loves many people in her life who are, plainly, fat, she doesn’t treat their ability to love or be loved as standard but as an exception.

And even as the movie comes to an end, as much as it is made clear this supernatural being isn’t a manifestation of Hana’s low blood sugar, dramatic weight loss, it seems she still doesn’t get it. For truly, in the days or weeks that passed in the movie, that isn’t enough time to truly undo years, far more than a decade, of troubling thoughts and feelings.

On The Fence

Similar To Slanted, It Feels Like The Horror Elements Are To Make The Core Topic Palatable [74/100]

While certainly not as inviting to controversy as Slanted, there is this feeling that Sacchrine knows that to get people to talk and think about a topic, outside of preaching to the choir, you need to add horror. With Slanted, it sheds light on how Asian people experience being a racialized group and deal with being othered, especially when placed in areas where their culture isn’t prominent or accessible outside their homes.

With Sacchrine, through the lens of being Asian, though more so being queer, it wants to explore a less dramatic way of what the experience is like to be fat. The problem is that it is not an easy sell. So, we bring in the supernatural element, the horror, and that fries up the cauliflower into something people might be more willing to consume.

But, similar to Slanted, it can feel like the heart of the subject gets lost in the hook. For with Hana being a subtle character, it makes her being stalked and threatened by the spirit, binge eating, and the more graphic parts of the film stand out more. Not to the point of you completely forgetting about what the heart of the film is, but you can imagine Hana’s experience being as secondary as the dialogue in an action movie. It helps move things along, but isn’t what people will remember the most about their experience.

Which, frankly, is a bit sad.

Overall

Our Rating (80/100): Positive (Worth Seeing)

At its heart, Sacchrine presents a nuanced take on living as a fat person, particularly one who is culturally Asian, queer, and unable to fully embrace the body positivity movement. But, unfortunately, in an effort to add some seasoning and make the topic more palatable, the film’s core can feel lost in trying to gain an audience that was unlikely to be invested in what the film truly wants to say and show.

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Amari is the founder and head writer of Wherever-I-Look.com and has been reviewing media since 2010. He approaches each production with hope, rooting for every story to succeed, and believes criticism should come from unmet potential, while praise is reserved for work that meets or exceeds expectations.