There is a rift in the diaspora about Asian women going blonde. It’s either that the person is A) entering their baddie era or B) subconsciously conforming to the beauty standard set by the white majority. I can’t be impartial to the argument. I went blonde in my college years, partly inspired by Britney Spears in Crossroads and partly raging against the academia machine (as if it mattered to my professors). But such goes the existence of modern-day assimilation, like compulsive heteronormativity or straightening our hair, I don’t think it’s quite as easy as pointing the finger and saying, “You’re doing it for them!’

However, in Amy Wang’s Slanted, you can point the finger and the blame will easily follow. 7-year-old Joan Huang (played by Shirley Chen, who had a delightfully apathetic presence as the older sister in Didi) and her family relocates from China to a U.S. town of no name but very indicative of being mostly white-populated. The year is 2008, when it was socially acceptable to make fun of a kid for having homemade lunch that doesn’t smell of stale carbs. Little Joan doesn’t have it easy being ostracized for her Chinese ethnicity, so her lucid imprinted dream of becoming Prom Queen kinda makes sense if you were looking for wide acceptance for being American.

Ten years later, Joan’s perception of the Asian American Dream still dictates her actions. She pinches her nose with a clothespin, which we can assume as an attempt to narrow the conventional widened nose bridge. She proceeds to the eventual blonde dye, which horrifies her mothers and is scorned by her classmates for a botched job. When the chance of her winning Prom Queen opens up after the presumed lead Olivia (Amelia Zilber) decides that she’s too busy working in a TV series pilot to run (yet we still see her quite a lot after the announcement not doing anything of the sort), Joan immediately jumps at it, despite the initial protesting from her best friend Brindha (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan).

I’ll put it plainly: of course I wanted to like Slanted! Even my coastal bubble sensibilities know that this still occurs within sections of the country that may have not realized that an Asian woman had already won an Oscar for Best Actress, and it’s exciting to introduce the idea through a body-horror lens once Joan realizes that ethnic modification surgery is a possibility, and one within her grasp. But even without the genre-melting concepts, I think the movie has some inklings of a cool story. Maybe it could have dug in harder with the near-dystopian peddling for whiteness, or even coast on being a normal teen comedy (Ramakrishnan alone lights up the screen). 

But I can’t help but feel that this movie is a little late on arrival. Joan’s obsession is tunnel-visioned, so much that we don’t know who she is other than her manic fascination with Olivia and pictures of white celebrities tacked on her bedroom walls. I half-believe this to be true, but I also feel skeptical about the lovable deliverance from her parents and Brindha’s friendship orbiting in her life, as if they are just swatted flies she has to ignore to get to the true goal. Slanted uses some boundary-expanding devices, but doesn’t quite land in any of the genres it seeks to be. While it could claim to be an offspring of The Substance, its claim to Mean Girls heritage falls short (though to be fair, Mean Girls 2 or Mean Girls: the Musical couldn’t pull off the classic’s rhythm, either). I wish synchronized salad-shaking at the cafeteria hits harder than it did, but when we already made fun of the Kardashians for doing so, something about it feels borrowed.

I ask myself who this movie is for, not to be deliberate in its missed targets but because it often refocuses the film’s perspective from what the audience, generally made of diverse lived experiences. Slanted is certainly not apologetic about white people’s behavior, though it doesn’t give strength to the non-white folks who are subjected to beauty standards. The film feels like the country is a hellscape that is only spiraling and we are completely helpless to it. It’s less of a movie with the charms and convincing to make you root for the character; instead, it is like a PSA for cosmetic surgery. It might get you to where you wanted, but you may never be able to come back. If that’s the goal, then yes, I will not do ethnic modification surgery. Though I might dye my hair blonde again in the future.

Slanted
2025
dir. Amy Wang
104 min.

Opens Friday, 3/13 @ Alamo Drafthouse Boston Seaport and AMC Boston Common, Causeway, and South Bay