After years of the culture beginning to shift away from the idea that being skinny is the only way to be beautiful, lately I am inundated with social media posts that give me the sinking feeling that being exorbitantly thin is starting to come back into vogue. “Saccharine,” a new horror film from writer/director Natalie Erika James, captures the horror of that feeling.
“Saccharine” follows Hana (Midori Francis), an exhausted med student who can’t seem to catch a break. She’s in love with the hot girl at her gym (Madeleine Madden) who barely knows she exists. She has a complicated, to say the least, relationship with her parents. And she’s struggling with disordered eating – specifically, binge eating.
But Hana is nothing if not resourceful. She signs up for the hot girl’s (her name is Alanya) workout program – admittedly more to be near Alanya than for any type of physical transformation. When it comes to that, she’s found a shortcut. A new weight loss pill guaranteed to make you lose weight fast. There’s just one tiny thing – the pill is, in part, made up of human ash.
This doesn’t phase Hana, who decides to take home part of a cadaver from school, grind it into dust, and make her own version of the pill instead of buying it off the street. But, when the ghost of the person she’s eating starts to haunt her, Hana finds herself on a downward spiral she might not be able to stop.
“Saccharine” opens up in theaters this weekend. Ahead of the opening, I spoke to James about capturing the horror of diet culture. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I’ve never really seen a movie deal with binge eating in this way, or eating disorders in this way. I want to start there – when did you first have this idea? Where did the idea for this movie come from?
Natalie Erika James: I feel like I started writing it back in 2018 when I was doing post on “Relic.” But in some ways I always thought to make a film about the subject matter. As you can probably tell from the film, it came from really a personal place, and my parents really were on opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of how they related to their bodies and food and all that kind of thing. There was a lot of messaging growing up that I was trying to unpack in this film.
I’ve heard you say that before, that there’s a personal bent to this. And I know that “Relic” had that personal bent as well. Do you usually find that when you write, it comes from a personal place like that?
James: Yeah, I definitely feel as though there’s always a desire to make sense of the world, or your experience through film or through your writing. I certainly feel that when I explore a subject. It’s not so much that you want to expose yourself to the world … I think just naturally, in creating a film or writing a film, you are exploring questions that are important to you or things you have yet to explore, and the making of the film is a way to kind of answer that for yourself.
Talking from a question and answer perspective, what was that for “Saccharine,” and do you feel like you’ve come out on the other side of exploring eating disorders, binge eating, whatever it might be, with any new information?
James: I mean, it’s always a variety of things, but I think what was forefront for me in this one was what is the path out of building up this sense of conditional love for yourself? How do you detach your sense of worth from how you look externally or the number on a scale? That was the driving question.
I do feel like, in the past few years – and of course, this has always been around – but there’s been a real uptick – I read an interview with you and I think someone called it “beauty horror?”
James: Oh, sure.
“The Substance,” “The Ugly Stepsister,” it’s even a little present in M. Night Shyamalan’s “Old,” which is kind of weird. I’m curious if you have any ideas of why this type of thing has become present in a lot of filmmakers’ minds, or why it became present in your mind, around this time?
James: It’s interesting, because I do think, to a certain degree, those stories have always existed. One of [the things] I took inspiration work from was “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” in terms of the logic of the ghost getting larger the more that she eats, and the painting getting older. I feel like those stories have always been part of our culture. At this point in time, I guess there is – you know, culture is always on a pendulum in some way, and I feel like after “body positivity,” it’s kind of gone back into the opposite, headfirst. That kind of cultural background definitely affects filmmakers. You kind of absorb that messaging as well.
This film also subverts stuff, in a way. Maybe this is me reading into it a bit, but Madeline Madden’s character, Alanya – I remember when she showed up, I was like, “Oh, we’ve got our bad guy.” But smartly, she’s not really that at all. Is that something that you’re thinking about, subverting those kinds of tropes? How are you approaching that kind of thing in your writing?
James: I think the more that Hana loses weight, she thinks it’s gonna get her all the things that she wants – close, with this woman. But if anything, it actually has the opposite effect, in that when she hits her goal weight, [Alanya is] actually quite concerned, and it drives a wedge between them, and she has to quit the program. That was definitely a conscious thing.
If you have the most baseline reading of it, it’s that it’s about a woman who loses weight. I would be horrified to think that people take that as the surface meaning of it, that her life is better because she loses weight. It was really important to me that it’s completely flipped on its head. Because often when you’re taking extreme measures, in any way that you look after your body, it does have consequences. So I think it was important that there was a more balanced view of Alanya. She is a character who, I think it’s kind of hinted at, but not fully explored, that she’s had her own kind of struggles as well, and maybe that’s why she claps back so hard at Hana. I guess there’s just a sense that no one comes out on top in terms of this kind of extreme diet culture.
There’s an interesting link between how an eating disorder can make you feel, with this sort of insatiability, versus sexual insatiability, kind of coming together with the end – which I don’t want to spoil for anyone. But I wonder if you could talk about managing that tension, whether it be through the writing process or while you’re directing.
James: I think the drive, that kind of consumptive desire that Hana has for Alanya, is very much this desire that she’s projecting onto her. I think you can outsource your sense of worth through so many things. It doesn’t have to be your weight, it can be trying to become a certain version of yourself through your desire for someone else. I think those things are so linked in terms of – I guess, like any addiction, you can avoid yourself or try and avoid discomfort within yourself through so many different means. That can be behavioral, that can be substances like sugar, or whatever. But it can also be in your pursuit of someone else and in the way that they make you feel as well.
You mentioned “Dorian Gray,” and I’ve heard you talk about that influence before. But were there any filmmakers or films you were thinking of as you were visualizing this?
James: I think the main three that I was drawing from were “Shame,” the Michael Fassbender film. “Raw,” was for sure a reference. And, I guess, in the sense of this unrelenting menace, or Bertha’s presence being this kind of oppressive force, “It Follows” was definitely one. Beyond that, some of the body horrors that I took inspiration from were “May” and “Excision.” Both kind of medically-adjacent body horrors that explore a female protagonist who’s looking for connection in some way, but going about it in the worst way possible.
I also wanted to talk a little bit about the opening – and this continues all the way through – but the decision to rewind the food coming in and out of a mouth. That creates a certain feeling towards food, and when you have an eating disorder, there’s a certain relationship you develop with food – drawn to it, but it can be disgusting in a way, and that’s really hard to reconcile. I wondered if you could talk about creating that tension with those visual cues.
James: I really wanted to just place the audience straight in the middle of that very sensory experience, where it often feels like it’s too much, but never enough, as well. There’s a strange tension between the pleasure and the pain of it. You’re kind of chasing a high, but then there’s also this sluggishness and often pain – like, physical pain – that’s being paired together. I thought seeing it in slow-mo in the most textual way you can, backwards as well, it being very unsettling and off, but then, also paired with this very desirous view of Alanya in the midst of that – having that jouissance, that pain/pleasure contrast was something that I tried to capture.
That “too much, never enough” idea is interesting. I don’t know if you feel this way, but I often feel like that about horror in general. I want it to stop, but I’m also like, get scarier!
James: It’s an interesting thing, isn’t it? I think it relates back to the whole idea of Bertha being this projection of Hana’s, that there’s a feeling of something outside of you that’s driving something. There’s opposing forces within you, in a way,
Speaking of Hana, I thought Midori Francis was wonderful. I’d love to hear about the casting decision and what drew you to her.
James: She was definitely our one and only. I was aware of her work through friends of mine. They’ve done some horror stuff with her. She’s so authentically herself and very disarming in that way. I feel like we needed someone who had that real charm, because she makes such questionable decisions in the film, so someone who really gets the audience on [her] side, and someone you want to root for as well. She’s incredible, and just so fearless in her approach to the character. I remember when she walked on set, and we did a camera test for the first time, and she just snapped into Hana. So much of that is about not just physical transformation, but the way she carries herself, and her self-consciousness, and how that behavior is enacted.
The physical thing is interesting – I assume it’s prosthetics that you used as she goes through the weight transformation?
James: Yeah.
We the audience are watching it, and it’s drastic, but it’s not like she looked bad before.
James: No!
So there’s this physical change Midori has to carry as well as dealing with the prosthetics. I’m curious, how long did all that take?
James: We did it across seven stages. It was a combination of prosthetics, a body suit, but a lot of it is conveyed through the performance as well. And completely – if anything, she looks the healthiest in the first stage.
I think someone even says it – you look great, you’re a baddie.
James: Yeah, and then by stage seven, she’s obviously sickly and unwell, and just not eating right. I do think it’s her performance that really carries that as well.
Correct me if I’m wrong – did you have a film before “Relic,” or was that your feature debut?
James: No, that was my first.
Over the arc of your career as a director, what have you learned? What has that evolution been like for you, learning how to step into that role?
James: I think you learn on every project, to be honest. I think that’s kind of the joy of directing, that you have new challenges to overcome. But I think with “Apartment 7A,” that was of course my first studio gig. It was kind of amazing, coming back from that. Obviously, with studio films, you get to work on a certain scale, there’s a joy just in that and the tools you get to play with. But coming home was really great, and a lot of the [Heads of Departments] I worked with were people that I’ve worked with since film school. So there’s a real sense of love on set. It is a cliche of, “Oh, we’re like a family.” But nothing beats just making cool sh*t with people you love, and that was definitely what I felt on “Saccharine.”
