'Saccharine' Movie Ending Explained & Summary: Did Hana Kill Alanya? 

Weight loss drugs are unfortunately selling like hot cakes (oh the irony!). From celebrities to social media influencers, several public figures have confessed to popping the ‘miracle’ pills. In a world that has long since celebrated skinny, can a drug like this do more harm than good? Well, that’s a topic for another article, but if you are interested in finding out how horrifying this obsession can get, then Natalie Erika James Saccharine is a must-watch. Hana’s guilt routine starts with gorging on sugary carb-rich food and then immediately regretting it and resolutely throwing away all the packaged food in her apartment. She wants to lose weight, but her eating disorder makes it almost impossible. Hana doesn’t think she can ever become as skinny as Alanya, the gym instructor who encourages her to join her 12-week transformation program. But when Alanya insists that she consider it, she decides to give it a go. Hana knows that she will fall back into her usual cycle of binge-eating, regret, and self-hate, and a transformation program can’t really fix her behavioral pattern. But things quickly change when Hana runs into her school friend, Melissa. Once plus-size, Melissa reveals the secret to her weight loss, a pill called ‘The Gray.’ Hana is hesitant to try, but she is also tempted by the prospect of losing weight without putting in any effort, and so she pops the pill.

Spoiler Alert

How does ‘The Ash’ work?

After trying just a couple of Melissa’s pills, Hana is shocked to see that she’s already lost significant weight. She didn’t have to put in any extra effort, the pill did its job. Hana notices the reflection of an old man on a spoon and she assumes she is hallucinating. She figures the side-effect (hallucination) isn’t bad compared to the glorious reward, but unfortunately the pills are expensive, and being a medical student, Hana figures she can at least study the chemical composition of the pill to find out the science behind the weight loss. Hana is surprised to discover that the composition of the medicine points to the fact that it is probably human ash. There’s clearly no academic research into the relationship between human ash and accelerated weight loss, but Hana doesn’t mind being the guinea pig. She’s desperate, every other person on the internet proudly flaunts their weight loss journey, and Hana wants to experience the same joy of achieving her goal. So, she does the unthinkable. She decides to steal the discarded rib cage of the cadaver she and her team were assigned to work on. She then cremates it and carefully weighs and fills up the empty pill cases with the ash and starts taking them. 

Hana starts to lose weight drastically, and she is delighted. She continues to binge-eat, and surprisingly, she feels hungrier than ever before. She continues to gobble down snacks, but if Hana is consuming such a high amount of junk, why is she not gaining weight? Where are the calories going? Well, soon after Hana starts taking the pills, she notices ‘Bertha,’ the name they’d assigned to the cadaver, following her. Hana can only see Bertha’s reflection on concave surfaces, like a spoon. She notices that Bertha is getting bigger, while she continues to shrink. The explanation is therefore simple, the food Hana consumes goes to Bertha, and slowly it appears as if Bertha is consuming Hana from the inside. Hana’s weight loss journey takes a concerning turn, she has lost over 40 kg in a short span of time and she feels constantly exhausted. She is essentially starving herself because the food she is consuming is being passed on to Bertha. 

Why does Bertha latch onto Hana?

Hana has always had a complex relationship with food, her father suffered from obesity and his decision not to do anything about it had a devastating effect on Hana and her mother. She didn’t want to become like her father, she was desperate to ‘fix’ herself and she ended up taking a very wrong path. This strange arrangement, where the spirit absorbs the food Hana consumes, underlines the devastating effects a negative relationship with food can have on one’s life. Hana needed help, not another pill to transfer her binge-eating problem to a spirit! Bertha has a backstory as well, her real name is Grace, and she died of liver cancer. Just like Hana, she’d struggled with an eating disorder, and it only got worse when she was diagnosed with cancer. Perhaps Grace found peace in death, but she wasn’t allowed to rest for long. A young girl, quite like her, chose to consume her ashes for the same reason she’d struggled her entire life. You can feel Grace’s rage, it’s as if societal beauty standards came back to haunt her even after death. 

Gradually, it becomes quite impossible for Hana to consume the amount of food Bertha craved, so her spirit starts possessing Hana at night, and she gulps down pretty much whatever she can find around her, even body butter! There are moments when I thought that Bertha was trying to humiliate Hana, reminding her of the ugliness and filth in the path that she has chosen. She can flaunt her weight loss journey outside, but behind closed doors, she has no choice but to stuff her face with anything edible, and what can be more humiliating than that? There’s no honesty there, just shame and disgust. If, for a minute, we consider that everything that unfolds on screen is figurative, then Bertha latching onto Hana can be read as the shame that Hana constantly carried around with her. The more pills she took, the worse the shame got, and the weight of this guilt of lying to the world, and most importantly, herself, took a toll on her. One can also interpret this whole situation as a manifestation of Hana’s fear. Hana is terrified of gaining weight, and she lives with this constant fear that compels her to make bad decisions, and she ultimately has to pay a hefty price for it. Saccharine also takes some pretty literal turns, Hana develops benign tumors in her pancreas, exactly like Grace, which eventually resulted in liver cancer. Hana assumes she is cursed by Grace’s spirit, and the only way to right the wrong is by returning the ashes and performing surgery on herself. 

Did Hana’s plan work?

Hana comes up with a theory after she notices that the tumor in her pancreas is in the exact same position as Bertha’s. She figures that she possibly developed these tumors after consuming the Ash, and perhaps if she removes the growth, her connection with Bertha will also break. This of course means operating on herself, a crazy decision, but Hana is well aware that she can’t possibly convince her doctor to trust her bizarre theory. Josie warns her not to go ahead with it, but Hana doesn’t listen. She snorts a strong dose of ketamine and proceeds to cut herself open. Because of the ketamine, she experiences an intense hallucinogenic episode. Hana finds herself in a garbage pile covered in plastic wrap. She somehow manages to remove the wrap and proceeds to operate on herself, and to her surprise, blood doesn’t ooze out immediately. She also notices Bertha in the pile of waste, looking at her angrily. Hana hurriedly tries to cut out the tumor from her pancreas but Bertha isn’t ready to wait. She is hungry and this time she is ready to devour Hana. 

Bertha pulls at Hana’s organs, and fearing that she’ll literally consume her from the inside, Hana stuffs Bertha’s face with the tumor she has managed to cut out from her pancreas. She assumes she will be left with a dismembered arm when Bertha puts it in her mouth, but to her surprise, Bertha’s spirit disappeared soon after she fed her the tumor. Hana eventually realizes that she is stuck in the dumpster in her apartment building and she notices her past self peeking through the little door. I think, at that moment, Hana wanted nothing more than to just become the person she used to be. She had always been extremely critical of herself, not allowing a moment’s respite but in that brief encounter when she directly looked at her old-self, she had nothing but kindness in her eyes. She not only lost weight, but she was no longer the person she used to be, and she missed her old self. We discover that Hana has lost a lot of blood, but thankfully Josie comes to her rescue and she survives! It looks like Hana’s plan worked, in the most mysterious way. I think the tumor can be interpreted as the self-hatred she constantly carried within her, and it’s only after she lets go of it that she finally heals (or does she?)

Why Did Hana Kill Alanya? 

We are led to believe that, in some strange way, Hana’s plan might have worked out. Or perhaps her near-death experience helped her forgive herself and prepare for a new beginning. Maybe Hana’s extreme decision to cut herself open satisfied Grace’s spirit, and she finally stopped following Hana. Or perhaps Grace’s cremation finally allowed her spirit to rest. Hana painted her nails blue, just like the shade she noticed on Grace’s nails. The ending of the film convinces the audience that Hana has moved past the possibly worst phase of her life, and she is looking forward to a new beginning. Hana had a crush on Alanya for a really long time, and Alanya too had taken an interest in her. Hana had tried to change her lifestyle, she wanted to be in love, to bring her girl home and spend time together like any other couple, but the ghost following her didn’t agree with her plans. One night, while staying over at Alanya’s, Grace’s spirit possessed Hana, and she ate everything she found in her kitchen. Hana was extremely embarrassed when Alanya saw her in such a sorry state, and she left in a hurry and never contacted her. But after the chaos in Hana’s life finally came to an end, she decided to fix her relationship with Alanya. She brings her two bags full of groceries and apologizes for messing things up the last time. Hana tries to humor Alanya, and well, the gym instructor figures that there is some honesty in Hana’s apology. They make passionate love, during which Hana bites into Alanya’s neck, not an intense love bite, but a serious mouthful-of-flesh bite! 

Saccharine’s ending reveals that Hana has consumed Alanya, quite literally. She has ripped off her skin, devoured her flesh, and left her organs exposed. Just like the painting in Hana’s med school lab. Who would’ve thought cute apology sex could turn so brutal! So, why did Hana kill Alanya? I don’t think Hana has any control over her actions. Even if we assume that she has stopped taking the pills, it’s likely that the spirit continues to follow her, and regular food can’t satisfy her hunger anymore. I think the spirit got a taste of human blood and flesh during Hana’s wild experiment, and it wanted more. Also, what is really interesting is that Hana’s eyes don’t twitch like they usually did when she was possessed by Bertha’s spirit. So, if she wasn’t possessed, what was the reason behind her cannibalistic act? Does that mean the spirit is now almost completely in control of Hana, where Hana’s spirit has now become secondary and, just like in the dumpster, she can simply watch herself destroy her life from afar? The other explanation is that Hana has always been obsessed with Alanya, I think even she wasn’t sure if she sexually or romantically desired Alanya, or if she simply craved to look like her. I believe the ending underlines Hana’s desperation to own Alanya, to not just be with her but to literally, physically, merge with her body. To consume her to satisfy her desperation just to be constantly with her. 

What does the final scene suggest?

The final scene hints at the very tragic continuation of a misery loop. Hana lost weight, but at what cost? She can never live a normal life, she can’t fall in love, she can’t trust herself around her friends, she can’t focus on her career because what she is dealing with is all-consuming! Josie, her best friend, is the only person who knows what she has been through, but I don’t think Hana will want to get Josie involved again. So, will Hana try to cover up a murder? Or will she hand herself over because life is tragic anyway? Also, what happened to Melissa? Did she lie about not seeing ghosts? Or was she spared from the horror because she wasn’t quite like Hana? Or perhaps everyone who has consumed ‘The Gray’ has basically turned bloodthirsty, and it’s a secret that everyone is carefully hiding, instead promoting their weight loss journey to inspire more desperate individuals to take the pills and turn into skinny monsters, who appear ravishing on the outside, but are dying inside. Hana’s journey to lose a few pounds ends on a bloody note, and it’s a reminder to the audience to not rely on popping pills, even if it is endorsed by celebrities, you never know the skeletons they are hiding to live up to societal beauty standards! 

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