Writer-director Natalie Erika James’ latest film Saccharine feels as timely as it could be, even if the director didn’t necessarily intend for that to happen.
The psychological horror film tackles weight loss, diet culture, obsession and addiction. Watching the film, it would be fair to assume that James might’ve felt inspired by the recent return of the early aughts’ outlook on weight loss and the rise of GLP-1 medications, however, the filmmaker chalks it up to an unfortunately evergreen conversation.
“I always knew I wanted to create a film or write a story exploring this kind of subject matter, which had a lot to do with how I was brought up, but certainly in the early 2000s — there were those tabloids where bodies were being torn apart,” the filmmaker tells The Hollywood Reporter on a recent Zoom. “It felt like there was a time when we stepped away from that [diet culture], but in a way I feel like it’s just been lying dormant or cultures swinging in certain ways.”
Filmmaker Natalie Erika James.
Courtesy
In the film, actress Midori Francis plays Hana, a medical student who becomes terrorized by a sinister force after partaking in the latest dieting fad — eating human ashes. James says the film isn’t a direct reaction to the current moment, but that things have become even more “insidious” due to social media showing what only tabloids previously did.
Saccharine is far from the first film to use body horror to analyze the beauty standards in modern times — 2024’s Oscar-winning The Substance was a cultural moment in and of itself. James and Francis both understand the unique position that the genre has in telling stories like this, even if audiences might not expect the genre to be leading this conversation. “Horror is amazing at externalizing what’s internal and allowing you to play with quite extreme or surreal imagery to depict that,” notes the filmmaker.
Francis agrees. “That was my initial reaction to reading the script, that this is not the vehicle I would instinctively think to tackle this issue, and yet it works so well,” the actress says.
Francis as Hana in Saccharine.
Courtesy of IFC Films
The actress found herself holding onto the kernels of truth in the story, even when things seemed outlandish. “No matter how otherworldly or absurd things got, it was always rooted in the feelings of being in the grips of compulsion or obsession or body checking,” she says. “How it can sometimes feel, when you’re dealing with a mental battle or struggle or addiction, nobody sees what’s going on, but it’s so loud inside your own brain.”
“I loved how loud parts of the movie are to distract and contrast the internal pressure that goes on inside one’s head at times, even the dopamine sequences,” says Francis, whose film uses surreal imagery to depict the dopamine-fueled highs that can come along with binging.
Both James and Francis have witnessed memorable and unexpected reactions to the film. James notes that it’s easy to forget how “visceral” body horror can be. “Someone in our Sundance screening apparently passed out and then had to leave,” she says. “I didn’t expect that it would be to that extreme.”
Francis also noted how audiences reacted to her after seeing her character on screen. “I’ve been doing a lot of Q&As after, and it’s interesting to see people feel a little uneasy by my presence,” the actress says. “After the credits role, I think, ‘Are they scared of me?’”
The actress recalls a family member hoping for a happy ending, something that James admits Francis asked her about in the beginning.
Either way, the actress is clearly happy with the final story — she constantly praises James and admits she’s only interested in horror when there’s a point to it. “Eating disorders [and] addiction [are] all things very personal to me, personal to afflictions shared by my family. I knew that whoever wrote this script that there was an authenticity there, a real voice and it was bold,” she says.
Francis just might appreciate boldness the most. She adds, “Nat has that in spades.”
Francis as Hana in Saccharine.
Courtesy of IFC Films
James knew the film was always going to be challenging for some viewers. “It’s just confronting to even talk about it openly, or even depict binging on screen… It’s just a very intense thing and certainly requires trigger warnings,” the director says.
While the film does not have an actual trigger warning that appears onscreen, James has been transparent about its subject matter. She explains that Saccharine is not necessarily the film that those at their darkest point or struggling with these topics should be watching.
James also speaks to the feedback they’ve received of the choice to have menace in the film being a larger character. “I think you have to see it through Hana’s very distorted lens,” she says. “The growth of the ghost is her own projection of her fears and those fears are due to her childhood, but also internalizing pressures from the culture that she lives in, which is very fatphobic.”
The director explains that there’s a very real weight stigma that exists in society and that due to that it’s often suggested that being in a larger body is somehow a moral failing. “I hope that people just go beyond the surface reading of that and look at what journey Hana is actually on to unpack those beliefs within herself as well,” she says.
As for Francis, she believes that Hana is missing the point and is afraid of the wrong thing. “Hana [is] complicit in this societal belief that the worst thing in her life could be to be ending up in that larger body,” the actress says.
“Ultimately the worst thing is Hana,” she adds. “She, and all of the shame inside of her she doesn’t address, is the monster at the end of this movie.”
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Saccharine is now playing in theaters and begins streaming on Shudder on July 24.