The new film Forbidden Fruits arrives as a deliberate homage to what many call mean-girl cinema, reviving the sly nastiness that once dominated teen dark comedies. Directed by Meredith Alloway and adapted from a stage piece by Lily Houghton, this debut is produced by Diablo Cody and sets a young woman inside a glossy retail collective where friendship often functions as a performance. The premise is deceptively straightforward: a newcomer walks into a curated social ecosystem inside a shopping mall and quickly learns that camaraderie has rules, hierarchies, and teeth. The film revels in that social choreography, using slick production design and pointed dialogue to expose how bonds between women can be both fiercely intimate and deliberately cruel.
Characters are playfully coded as fruits, with each name doubling as a personality shorthand and a small joke about identity and surface. Pumpkin, played by Lola Tung, operates less like an innocent and more like an analyst, watching for fractures she can exploit to belong. Fig (played by Alexandra Shipp) carries self-possession as armor and drops eccentric trivia to disarm others. Cherry (played by Victoria Pedretti) mixes tragic vulnerability and comedic timing in a performance that nods to classic glamor myths. Finally, Apple (played by Lili Reinhart) commands the group with a cold charisma that feels both magnetic and dangerous. These roles lean on recognizable archetypes, but the actresses reanimate them with small, specific details that keep the film from feeling purely derivative.
A familiar premise sharpened for now
Lineage matters here: Forbidden Fruits knowingly draws from films like Heathers, Jawbreaker, The Craft, and Mean Girls, and it nods backward to older ensemble comedies such as The Women. Yet the film is not content to merely repeat beats; it attempts to translate the corrosive edge of those stories into a contemporary register. The script leans into the absurdities of modern communication and consumer culture—text messages that reduce desire to emojis, performative influencer scams, and the rituals of boutique retail—so that the world feels both familiar and slightly off. In this sense, mean-girl cinema is treated as a living genre, one that can still offer sharp commentary when combined with a keen eye for style and social detail.
Tone and themes: bite, commerce, and ritual
The tone of Forbidden Fruits alternates between gleeful nastiness and genuine melancholy, finding its power in the friction between spectacle and sincerity. Diablo Cody‘s involvement as producer signals an appetite for punchy, character-driven dialogue, and Lily Houghton‘s source material brings stage-born focus to interpersonal dynamics. On-screen, conversations often function like performances—people reciting social codes as though they were vows—and the movie mines humor from how easily ritual replaces friendship. The film also interrogates capitalism through its mall setting, portraying retail as both a stage for identity and a machine that manufactures desire and competition among workers and customers alike.
Reviving a nasty energy
One of the film’s clearest ambitions is to restore the unapologetic sharpness that earlier entries in the genre embraced. The cast delights in trading social barbs, and the writing is comfortable letting characters be actively mean without softening their edges. This is not irony for its own sake; rather, the nastiness exposes deeper loneliness and ambition. The movie acknowledges that cruelty can be strategic, and it places that strategy at the center of its drama, asking viewers to consider why people weaponize intimacy to survive and to gain status.
Witchcraft as metaphor
There is also an undercurrent of ritual and minor occultism that functions as both plot device and metaphor. The group’s occasional leaps into quasi-ceremony—chants, blood-soaked props, and superstitious acts—are less about literal magic and more about control, belonging, and rebellion against the emptiness of consumer identity. The film treats witchcraft not as the main attraction but as a magnifying glass: rituals intensify emotions and clarify who holds power. That choice keeps the supernatural elements playful and symbolic rather than purely horrific or literal.
Direction, style, and what lingers
Meredith Alloway demonstrates strong instincts for tone and pacing in this first feature, bringing a confident sense of visual and rhythmic control that recalls filmmakers who blend aesthetics with social critique. The costume and production design—most notably a boho-chic storefront that echoes brands like Free People—help stage the film’s world as both seductive and manufactured. Some viewers may find the movie sprawling in its later stretches or wish its queer potential were pursued further, yet its willingness to be messy is part of its character. The project suggests fertile ground for future exploration of these figures and their universe, and for audiences who miss the sharp teeth of that particular cinematic tradition, the film delivers several moments of delicious, uncomfortable pleasure.
For those looking to see it, Forbidden Fruits will have a limited theatrical run and drop on Shudder starting March 27. The film is an invitation to sit with complicated, often unkind women who are equal parts monstrous and magnetic—an aesthetic choice that both honors and reconfigures the mean-girl lineage.