Grafted
by Michelle Huang
Grafted (Sacha Rainbow, 2024)
For Grafted’s central character, “beauty is pain” in the most literal sense. Sacha Rainbow’s ambitious debut feature explores how far one might go to become beautiful. After the shy but talented Wei (Joyene Sun) receives a university scholarship, she moves to New Zealand for her studies. Her father was a Chinese scientist who dedicated his life’s work to “fix” the birth defect on his daughter’s face and neck, of which he also possesses. Wei seeks to continue her father’s research for the cure, believing that it will make her loveable in her new environment. As she begins conducting facial skin grafting experiments on herself, a sleazy lecturer that itches to steal her research, an unwelcoming cousin (Jess Hong) and her squad of mean girls become hindrances to her pursuit of beauty.
At times Rainbow’s film is certainly unsubtle with its intense concern with the pressures of modern beauty standards and the currency of pretty privilege. In one of the first moments of Wei’s arrival to the new country, a billboard that reads “with a new face, become a new you” bashes the audience on head with its message.
It seems that the film only dabbles in the idea that Western beauty standards are rooted in whiteness, but it is evident that it wants to use Wei’s Chineseness to explore the insidiousness of such deep-rooted issues. Of course, her Chinese identity is detailed throughout the film through food and the home altar set up for her father. Her cousin, Angela, is an assimilated foil to Wei’s foreignness. While Angela’s hostility towards Wei is never explicitly stated, her immediate rejection of Wei is a defensive attempt to distance herself from being othered. However, this characterisation makes her more of a caricature to the question of otherness which the film did not intend to answer. The Chinese elements of the film do not feel in the least ornamental, but could have given the film more nuanced and original conversations around beauty.
As a cinematic experience, the graphic yet believable gore makes for a dizzying feast for the eyes. Wei experiments on herself ruthlessly with unshakable determination. The shock horror from her intentional scalpel work leaves the audience squirming at rubbery flesh and squelching blood; body horror is promised by the premise, and it is undoubtedly delivered.
While it seems like discussions of Grafted often fall in the shadows of the widespread commercial and critical success of Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (unfortunately released the same year), the similar themes only amplify the craving for a sick (and sickening) time at the movies. Rainbow’s film screened at MWFF 2025 as part of the ‘Almost Midnight Movie Marathon’ alongside local small budget T Blockers (Alice Maio Mackay, 2024). A double feature format feels like a rite of passage for the horror film to be cemented with cult status, indicating that the grotesque, horror B-movie sensibilities of Grafted will likely garner at-home movie-night rewatches as a future contemporary cult classic.