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Writer-director Natalie Erika James’ latest film Saccharine feels as timely as it could be, even if the director didn’t necessarily intend for that to happen.
The psychological horror film tackles weight loss, diet culture, obsession and addiction. Watching the film, it would be fair to assume that James might’ve felt inspired by the recent return of the early aughts’ outlook on weight loss and the rise of GLP-1 medications, however, the filmmaker chalks it up to an unfortunately evergreen conversation.
“I always knew I wanted to create a film or write a story exploring this kind of subject matter, which had a lot to do with how I was brought up, but certainly in the early 2000s — there were those tabloids where bodies were being torn apart,” the filmmaker tells The Hollywood Reporter on a recent Zoom. “It felt like there was a time when we stepped away from that [diet culture], but in a way I feel like it’s just been lying dormant or cultures swinging in certain ways.”
Filmmaker Natalie Erika James.
