Saccharine, the plot of the movie

Saccharine is the upcoming sci-fi and horror movie. Hana (Midori Francis) is a first-year medical student struggling with her weight and a compulsive eating disorder. Her social media feed is full of weight loss tips, and her thin mother constantly comments on her physical appearance.

When she meets an old high school friend almost unrecognizable due to her physical transformation, Hana is introduced to very special slimming pills: gray capsules costing $5,000 that “melt” the pounds away. The effect is immediate, and Hana - as a medical student - has access to university laboratories and decides to analyze the pills' content to replicate them. The discovery is chilling: the secret ingredient is human ash. Without hesitation, Hana begins stealing parts of the corpse she is studying in anatomy — an obese woman whom she and her best friend Josie cynically call “Big Bertha” — to create her own pills.

While Hana’s weight rapidly drops, and she finally gains the attention of the girl she likes - the fitness coach Alanya - increasingly disturbing side effects begin to manifest. Hana is haunted by the ghost of Bertha, the woman whose ashes she is consuming for her vanity, in increasingly violent and terrifying ways.

Saccharine, the trailer of the movie

“Am I just thinking of signing up for this thing?” Hana says in the released trailer; “what thing?” replies her friend; “it’s just something related to the gym workout program.” She starts taking slimming pills, based on “calcium phosphate”; “they are human ashes,” her friend reassures her.

Then she loses weight dramatically. “You look good, are you okay?” asks her mother.

Saccharine, the cast of the movie

Midori Francis has acted in the series Dash & Lily, which earned her a Daytime Emmy Awards nomination, and recently left the cast of Grey’s Anatomy after two seasons playing Dr. Mika Yasuda. In 2025, Francis returned to theater with the production of Bus Stop by the Classic Stage Company, where her performance as Cherie was described by The New York Times as “the brightest performance of the show.”

The cast includes Danielle Macdonald, known from Patti Cake$ and Dumplin’; Madeleine Madden, an Australian Aboriginal actress known for her role in The Wheel of Time; Anna Adams, Joseph Baldwin, Robert Taylor, and Showko Showfukutei.

Saccharine, the direction of the movie

The direction is by Natalie Erika James, who previously directed Apartment 7A, the prequel to Rosemary’s Baby starring Julia Garner, and Relic. The movie stems from a personal experience: “I grew up with parents who were at opposite extremes regarding their relationship with body and food,” the director stated. “My father struggled with food addiction. My mother, almost in response, was extremely strict with her diet. In between, meals were a minefield.”

Saccharine, reviews and release date

The movie was presented at the Sundance Film Festival 2026 in the Midnight section, where it received positive reviews, and was also shown at the Berlin Film Festival 2026.

For Screen Daily, “it all culminates in a frantic nightmare climax of greed, desire, and unrestrained excess that mercilessly bites into society’s toxic obsession with the female body, leaving horror genre fans wanting more.”

For Variety, “Saccharine shows that James’ talent is best expressed through more independent means, even if it does not reach the emotional and dramatic depth that gave 'Relic' equal appeal in both genre and auteur cinema.”

For The Hollywood Reporter, “the narrative becomes chaotic to the point that it is unclear what the Australian writer-director wants to say, although her brilliant lead, Midori Francis, keeps the viewer glued to the screen.”

Saccharine will be released in US cinemas on May 22, 2026.