Saccharine 2026 Movie Review
How far would you go just to finally feel right inside your own body. That is exactly where Saccharine starts for me and that is also where the film is strongest. Not only as body horror, but as something that turns shame, self-image, and that need to change yourself into something much uglier.
What I liked about it is that the film does not just hold diet culture and beauty obsession out in front of you as a theme. It really turns them into something physical. Something that settles inside you, something that gets under the skin, and at some point no longer looks like control, but like something that has already slipped out of it. That is also why those parallels to The Substance worked for me. That feeling that your own body is no longer something you live in, but something you are fighting against.
Then there is that other thread that made the film even more uncomfortable for me. That sense of being followed, of not being able to get rid of something, of feeling that something stays with you once a line has been crossed. That is where I also thought of It Follows, without the film simply copying what others have already done. It takes that kind of energy and pulls it into its own disgust and its own direction.
For me, this is a film that does not get everything perfect, but gets enough right to stay with you. Mostly because it turns its moral question into something that never feels abstract. How far would you go to be prettier, thinner, more desirable, or just to finally believe that you are enough. That is where Saccharine becomes uncomfortably good.
And in the end, all that remains is: “Please think about feed Bertha.”
