Review: In too-timid Asian American assimilation horror Slanted, somethings not quite white

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Fitting in comes at a steep cost in “Slanted,” a sci-fi-horror satire in which a Chinese American teen makes a Faustian bargain seeking acceptance the only way that fashion magazines, her social media algorithm and the world at large suggest she can: by becoming white.Literally.

Desperate to erase her Asian features, she takes the bait when a shady cosmetic company offers the ultimate makeover.The only catch? It’s irreversible.

And you thought permanent eyebrows were a commitment.A few fleshy shreds of late-breaking gore eventually follow, though writer-director Amy Wang’s SXSW-winning assimilation horror never cuts as deeply as it should.Still, credit the debuting feature filmmaker for venturing pretty far out there with a risky conceit in which two actresses, one Asian and the other white, play the same person while convincing us that we’re watching one conflicted girl stuck in two different bodies.“Slanted” opens as 8-year-old Joan Huang (Kristen Cui) moves from China to wealthy suburban Georgia with her working-class parents Roger (Fang Du), a musician turned janitor, and her pragmatic mother Sofia (Vivian Wu).

Scarred by the racist rejections of her white classmates on the first day of school, she’s awed by the prom coronation she witnesses the same night.Almost 10 years later and torn between her Chineseness and her desire to be embraced as American, the spunky Joan (Shirley Chen, a sardonic standout in “Dìdi” and wonderfully vulnerable here) would do anything to be crowned prom queen, the ultimate emblem of popularity.

When the mysterious Ethnos Inc.sells her on an “ethnic modification” surgery guaranteeing a happier, whiter life, Joan eagerly signs up for the procedure that will replace her Asian identity and turn her into, well, Mckenna Grace (“Regretting You”).

Entertainment & Arts What exactly is Ethnos? Call it the med spa from hel...