As it hits Shudder this Friday, Sasha Rainbow’s Grafted is bound to receive a lot of criticism comparing it to another little horror movie called The Substance. That would be fair, as both features deal with a lot of similar themes, from body horror to freak biotechnology to how we succumb to our society’s beauty standards. However, to reduce Grafted to a Substance-like film is more than a little unfair. For starters, the Grafted screen debut is too close to The Substance’s own release date to dub it a rip-off. Secondly, director Coralie Fargeat herself is not shy about admitting to the body horror canon that inspired her own creation. The Substance is full of nods to movies like The Fly and Re-Animator – movies that, no doubt, also inform Rainbow in her film, much like the French classic Eyes Without a Face.
Director: Sasha Rainbow
Cast:Joyena Sun , Jess Hong , Jared Turner , Mark Mitchinson , Ginette McDonald , Benjamin Hudson
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Rainbow and her fellow screenwriters Lee Murray and Mia Maramara manage to do something new with familiar tropes, crafting a work of art that is original and heartfelt in a way that we haven’t seen before. The result is a movie that merits watching, even though it fails in some crucial aspects.
What Is ‘Grafted’ About?
Grafted is the story of Wei (Joyena Sun), a teenage girl who leaves China to live with her aunt and cousin Angela (Jess Hong) in a wealthy suburb of Auckland, New Zealand. Bearing a big reddish blotch on her face, Wei also has a dark past: her father, who suffered from the same condition as his daughter, died as a result of his experiments on the creation of a skin graft that would render them both “beautiful” in society’s eyes. A biology genius in her own right, Wei takes her father’s mantle in trying to change her appearance, but her experiments take a dark turn when her path crosses with Angela’s group of popular mean girls. Things get even worse when her science teacher, a former boy genius, threatens to take away her work.
‘Grafted’ Works Best as a Metaphor For Immigration
Grafted’s story is a bit all over the place. By the end, it feels almost like a wonder that Rainbow, Maramara, and Murray actually manage to wrap up all the loose ends, even if some twists and turns seem to come out of nowhere. But perhaps the most important thing to say about Grafted’s screenplay is that it doesn’t really work as the mediation on beauty standards it textually purports to be via Wei’s insistence that she wants to make people beautiful, including the homeless burn victim she befriends. Instead, Grafted is a tale about a constantly othered immigrant child trying her best to fit in.
Wei is constantly belittled by her New Zealand-born cousin for her attachment to Chinese traditions, and the mean girls that pretend to be her friends mock her not for her blotchy face, but for the food she eats and her altar to her dead father. Thus, it is hard to read Wei’s dark turn as a quest for beauty, and not as a desperate attempt to assimilate to a culture that doesn’t accept her for who she is. Grafted seems a little confused about what its actual themes are. Wei’s skin condition is almost forgotten as the story progresses, but the text keeps insisting that her real desire is to cure her “deformity.”
The very first scene of Grafted is one of its best, courtesy not only of Rainbow but of the cinematography by Tammy Williams and the performances by Mohan Liu and Sam Wang as little Wei and her father, Liu. After that one scene, though, the movie gets chaotic, the story rushing to arrive at the tipping point audiences are certainly waiting for. This leaves little room for the plot and the characters to breathe, as well as no time for us to delight ourselves with Williams’ beautiful and inventive images. Ultimately, it is hard to pick up the film’s tone in its first 30 minutes of screen time, to the point that a less dedicated viewer might give up on watching. Even the script’s very fine sense of humor gets lost as it’s hard to determine whether we’re laughing with or at the story. It is only after the first third that the movie finds its footing.
‘Grafted’ Gets Better as Its Story Gets Wilder
When that happens, Grafted truly becomes something to behold. It’s not exactly great, but it certainly showcases all of the potential of Sasha Rainbow and her team. The performances also get stronger as the story grows wilder, allowing viewers into the full madness of Wei’s world. All that it takes is a head in the fridge and a straightening iron being used as a nunchuck, and suddenly all the pieces fall into place, from Bikkie, the constantly yapping dog, to the over-the-top vibes of most, if not all, death scenes. And it’s as Grafted becomes crazier — and, therefore, funnier — that it achieves its goal.
Grafted is not a scary movie. Instead of fear, it is meant to produce discomfort and disgust. It never really reaches the apex of any of those feelings, as it’s so focused on telling a story that it neglects its visual aspects. And, yet, after Wei goes full haywire, the film gifts us with images that are hard to forget – images that make us cheer in their horror, both because we feel for Wei and because they are kinda punk rock, with amazing practical effects. However, Grafted is guilty of a particularly cruel ending; one that, without too many spoilers, punishes its main character while not convincing us that she deserves it. Sure, Wei does some pretty awful things over the course of the film, but can we really fault her for wanting to feel at home? Do we really revel in her getting her comeuppance? It feels like a resounding “no.”
Nevertheless, Rainbow manages to craft something unique that deserves to be seen. The director’s one hour of unhinged madness is a lot better than many movies that take themselves too seriously out there, even if her first 30 minutes feel bloated and clunky. And, when we take into consideration the fact that this is Rainbow’s first feature film, Grafted becomes even more interesting. There is a lot of promise here, even with all its flaws. With beautiful visuals, an interesting plot, and a middle that some might even say makes up for its beginning and ending, Grafted is worth watching and Sasha Rainbow is a horror filmmaker to keep an eye on.
Grafted releases on Shudder on January 24 in the U.S.
News Credit : collider.com
