Saccharine

It can happen anywhere, but it’s worst when she’s at home. That constant low-level fear. The sense that there’s somebody looking over her shoulder. Acute awareness of her vulnerability, of the more powerful force that seems to have her in its grip. Hana (Midori Francis) isn’t easily unsettled – she’s a medical student – but she has always had a troubled relationship with food. One might reasonably say that she’s haunted by it – and her situation is about to get much, much worse.

Hana is a little plump – not obese by any means – and she seems to be in good health. She’s pretty, and there’s a real sweetness about her. Still, she worries constantly. She has a crush on Alanya (Madeleine Madden), a trainer at the gym she goes to, but assumes that no conventionally ‘hot’ woman is going to want her the way she is. Doughnuts provide comfort, until the guilt and remorse well up and she throws them down the garbage chute. She has felt like this throughout her life, and like many people in that situation, she longs for a way to cheat thec system. Friends worry, advising her not to go down the dangerous and scam-friendly diet pill route, but one day an old friend at a club, amazingly slender and glamorous given how she used to look, offers her something new. Giving it a try, she’s amazed by the results.

Hana isn’t stupid. She’s not going to pay extortionate amounts for something when she can analyse it in her college lab and work out the ingredients for herself. The results shock her. It appears to be made of human ash. Currently engaged in the slow process of corpse dissection that every would-be doctor goes through, Hana realises that she can procure some of this for herself, but whilst it has the desired effect of helping her with weight loss, she’s not ready for the side effects.

A compact, assured film which succeeds in interweaving multiple complex themes, Saccharine also makes for gripping viewing. It balances a sense of growing dread with lighthearted moments of character-driven comedy. Squeamish viewers may find themselves watching through their fingers, especially towards the end, as the film unflinchingly depicts the dissection as well as other medical processes, as well as addressing obesity in a way that reflects its heroine’s fears. The complex interaction of desire and disgust is expressed through the textures of indulgent, luxurious foods juxtaposed with similarly textured body parts in a way that is both sensual and grotesque, with some of the best visual ideas reserved for the closing credits.

Charlie Sarroff’s cinematography captures the contrasts elsewhere in the film very effectively, as we cut between public places where Hana feels good, having fun with friends or delighting in her changing body, and the spaces where she feels haunted and afraid, There’s some wonderful observation of details, both visually and thematically. Hana watches videos on her phones: endless diet solutions, from the exploitative to the delighfully silly but all too believable ‘potato masher challenge’. She’s a woman who, not feeling hot, has carved out her own space centred on cuteness, with accessories like a little sequinned cat face purse which highlight her playful side, making it clear that in other contexts she’s not shy about expressing herself. She’s lively with friends (Danielle Macdonald from If I Had Legs I’d Kick You shines as the closest of them), and she can assert herself in class. Director Natalie Erika James does nothing to indulge the stereotypes of people with eating disorders.

Touching on the real world horror of what can happen to people because of fatphobia, the film shifts intelligently between acknowledging revulsion at obesity and rejecting the way that obese people are treated. It exhibits a rare willingness to humanise its monsters and, perhaps, to find something monstrous within its most human characters.

Reviewed on: 22 May 2026