Shirley Chen (Dìdi) experiences being white through Mckenna Grace (Five Nights at Freddy’s 2) in the trailer for Slanted, described as “Mean Girls meets The Substance.”
The teen body horror comedy opens in theaters nationwide on March 13 via Bleecker Street.
It follows Joan Huang, who idolizes the popular girls and dreams of being prom queen, but fears the only way to win is to look like all the past queens whose portraits line her high school halls.
Enter Ethnos: a mysterious cosmetic surgery clinic that turns people of color white. Joan undergoes the procedure and wakes up a beautiful blonde destined for the crown, but at what cost?
Vivian Wu (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III), Maitreyi Ramakrishnan (“Never Have I Ever”), Amelie Zilber (“Grown-ish”), and Fang Du also star.
Writer-director Amy Wang (“The Brothers Sun”) makes her feature debut on the project, which premiered at last year’s SXSW and took home the Narrative Grand Jury Award.
“As an immigrant, I’ve always been aware that I looked different,” Wang commented. “As a teenager trying desperately to fit in, I used to wake up and wonder, ‘Wouldn’t life just be easier if I were white?’ Slanted is a satirical exploration of whiteness that challenges that question. It examines the cost of chasing acceptance, and what it means to abandon yourself in the process. Is belonging worth losing who you are for a system that was never built to value you?”
From Tideline Entertainment and Mountain Top Pictures, producers include Wang, Trevor Wall, Adel “Future” Nur, Cameron Boling, and Mark Ankner.
Meagan Navarro wrote in her review, “As personal as Slanted feels, the superficial nature of its satire winds up softening a lot of its sharper edges. That likely suits its teen demographic well but won’t be as winsome for seasoned horror fans.”
Slanted is rated R for “language, some sexual material, teen drug use, and brief violent content/bloody images.”
Grace can next be seen in Scream 7 on February 27, followed by The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, out November 20. She also just signed on to play Daphne in Netflix’s “Scooby-Doo” series.
