Amelie Zilber, Amy Wang, Callie McClincy, comedy, drama, Elaine Hendrix, Fang Du, Kristen Cui, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Mckenna Grace, movies, Nicholas Myers, R. Keith Harris, reviews, Sarah Kopkin, Slanted, Vivian Wu
March 10, 2026
by Carla Hay
Directed by Amy Wang
Some language in Mandarin with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the sci-fi comedy/drama film “Slanted” features a predominantly Asian and white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A high school student, who comes from an immigrant Chinese family, is desperate to be popular at her predominantly white school, so she campaigns to be prom queen and undergoes surgery to radically change her physical appearance to look like a white person.
Culture Audience: “Slanted” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in seeing dark satires of how white supremacist racism affects people’s lives.
“Slanted” blends dark comedy and some body horror in this story about an insecure Asian high school girl who has radical surgery to look like a white person. The movie’s concept fizzles out in the last 15 minutes, but most of the satire works well. Because the movie doesn’t fully commit to the horror angle that happens in the second half of “Slanted,” this movie might not be scary enough for horror fans, and it might not be funny enough for comedy fans. However, “Slanted” has enough memorable moments and engaging performances to motivate curious viewers to see how the movie ends.
Written and directed by Amy Wang, “Slanted” is her feature-film directorial debut. “Slanted” had its world premiere at the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival, where it won the grand jury prize for Narrative Feature Competition. The movie takes place in an unnamed U.S. city in 2025, with a few flashback scenes to 2015. “Slanted” was actually filmed in the Atlanta area.
In “Slanted,” 17-year-old Joan Huang (played by Shirley Chen) is in her last year at Stanwood Park High School. Joan is the only child of domineering Sofia Huang (played by Vivian Wu) and mild-mannered Roger Huang (played by Fang Du). The Huang family immigrated to the United States from China about 10 years before this story takes place.
The movie begins with scenes of 7-year-old Joan (played by Kristen Cui), shortly after she and her family immigrated to the United States. Everywhere Joan looks, she sees only white women presented as standards of female beauty. At school, she is shunned and ridiculed by other students because she is Asian and because she brings Chinese food to school.
In 2015, Roger had a job as a janitor working evenings and weekends at Stanwood Park High School, where Joan preferred to spend time with him on the job instead of with her mother Sofia. It’s how Joan first saw the school’s prom and the tradition of crowning a prom queen. In 2025, Roger works as a house cleaner for a wealthy woman named Harmony (played by Elaine Hendrix), whose husband and kids are mentioned but are not characters in the movie.
Joan’s best friend at school is Brindha (played by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), who is sarcastic and outspoken. The “queen bee” of the school’s popular clique is Olivia Hammond (played by Amelie Zilber), a shallow and self-absorbed “mean girl” who pretends to be kind and charitable when she’s filming herself for social media. In reality, Olivia is rude and likes to act superior to people she thinks are inferior to her.
Joan and Brindha are not part of the school’s most popular clique that is led by Olivia. Brindha doesn’t care, but Joan secretly wants to be part of this clique, which consists only of white people in this school of predominantly white students. The clique consists of Olivia; sycophantic blondes Greta (played by Sarah Kopkin) and Cat (played by Callie McClincy); Olivia’s boyfriend Greg; and star athlete Nash (played by Nicholas Myers). All of these clique members are spoiled and entitled.
One day, Olivia announces on social media that because she got the lead role in an upcoming TV show, she’ll be too busy to be a candidate for prom queen, which is a title that Olivia is sure she would’ve won. This announcement prompts Joan to run for prom queen. Brindha agrees to be Joan’s campaign manager. Later, Olivia says that in the following week, Olivia will announce which prom queen candidate will get Olivia’s endorsement.
Much of the first third of “Slanted” shows examples of how Joan tries to downplay or erase her Chinese American heritage in situations where she thinks she will be discriminated against for being an immigrant and for not being white. Sofia often gives criticism to Joan for Joan losing interest in Chinese traditions. Sofia also thinks Joan wears too much makeup, even though Joan’s makeup is modest by American standards.
Observant viewers will notice that only white people are in the posters and pin-up photos that Joan has on her bedroom walls. Joan gets embarrassed when Sofia speaks Mandarin in public. Joan also doesn’t tell people that she was born in China. Joan lets people assume that she was born in the United States.
And when Joan notices that all the previous Stanwood Park High School prom queens were white girls with blonde hair, Joan decides to dye her hair blonde. She can’t afford to have the dye job done professionally, so she does the dye job herself. The results are a dye job with uneven streaks and roots that are noticeably showing.
Joan’s parents aren’t thrilled about Joan’s new hair color, but they aren’t angry about it either. At school, Olivia starts paying more attention to Joan, now that Joan is a blonde. Joan is excited when Olivia invites Joan to join Olivia, Greta and Cat for a trip to a local beauty salon/spa. However, Joan’s elation turns to humiliation when Joan finds out that Olivia is just using Joan to speak Mandarin to the spa’s Chinese owner/manager because Olivia wants the owner/manager to give them a discount.
Joan keeps getting text messages from a company called Ethnos Inc., which markets itself to people who aren’t white and who want more success in a society that’s dominated by white people. Joan is contacted by Ethnos because she is in the top percentile of people who use Ethnos’ photo filters to make herself look white in social media posts. Ethnos is trying to persuade Joan to get a service that the company promises will make her life better.
Joan is curious about this company but doesn’t respond to their pitches until after a bullying incident where Olivia and her clique make it obvious that they will never accept Joan into their group. Joan visits the Ethnos offices, where she meets co-founder Willie Singer (played by R. Keith Harris), who explains that the company offers experimental surgery that can turn people of color into white people. It’s a procedure that’s irreversible. Willie says he got the surgery for himself.
Ethnos also has promotional videos featuring “testimonials” from other people who’ve had the surgery and are happy with the results. The people who give the testimonials all say that their lives are so much easier now that they are white. They give examples of how they get treated better by strangers and they have more success in their lives.
Joan is desperate and wants to do the surgery. Because Joan is under the age of 18, she has to get a parental signature for the surgery documents. Knowing that Sofia will trust whatever Joan says and won’t really look at the documents, Joan lies to Sofia and says the documents are for a field trip. The movie never explains where Joan got the money to pay for the unnamed cost of this surgery.
The rest of “Slanted” shows what happens after Joan gets the surgery and re-invents herself as a white girl named Jo Hunt (played by Mckenna Grace), with an identity as a newly enrolled student from California. Jo lies when she tells people that her father is a film/TV producer. Joan’s parents are shocked and dismayed by what Joan has done to her physical appearance. And, as already revealed in the “Slanted” trailer, this surgery has side effects where Joan’s face becomes disfigured and some of her skin can be peeled off.
“Slanted” has very talented principal cast members, who skillfully handle the movie’s mix of genres, making “Slanted” very intriguing and watchable. The jokes and scenarios about racism and beauty standards have enough truth in them for the satire to be effective. However, once these points are made in “Slanted,” and the movie establishes that the Ethnos surgery is irreversible, the plot really has nowhere else to go. “Slanted” won’t be considered a classic film about how racism affects people, but the movie stands on its own for offering some sly commentary about this provocative topic.
Bleecker Street and Tideline Entertainment will release “Slanted” in select U.S. cinemas on March 13, 2026. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on March 9, 2026.