THE STORY – At a mall store, Apple leads a secret witch cult with coworkers Cherry and Fig. New hire Pumpkin questions their sisterhood, forcing them to confront inner darkness or meet violent ends.
THE CAST – Lili Reinhart, Lola Tung, Victoria Pedretti, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Chamberlain & Gabrielle Union
THE TEAM – Meredith Alloway (Director/Writer) & Lily Houghton (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 103 Minutes
We lost something when shopping malls replaced shopping centers as the cultural centers of our society. Food courts, the movies, and window shopping while wandering around are all but nostalgia fuel for filmmaker Mereideth Alloway. With her latest feature, “Forbidden Fruits,” Alloway successfully taps into an aesthetic that is all too prevalent throughout the noughties, offering a throwback to the 2000s femme-focused genre fare in the most satisfying way possible. Alloway’s first feature wholly understands what it is, what it’s striving to accomplish, and more importantly, knows how to be a vom-inducing, sanguinary time at the movies.
When we are introduced to the Texas mall where the luxury department store Free Eden is based, Alloway immediately shows that “The Fruits” are at the top of the mall’s social hierarchy. The sisterly saleswomen are bonded by their hatred of men, strict dietary rules, and, most of all, their unyielding loyalty to one another. When these ladies aren’t striking fear into the hearts of the mall’s other employees, they’re practicing witchcraft, waiting for the right one to help them complete their retail season. Lili Reinhart’s Apple spearheads this coven, the strict ringleader who holds her sisters, Fig, played by Alexandra Shipp, and Cherry, played by Victoria Pedretti, together, even if it is by fear. It’s a tight bond that slowly starts to unravel as newbie Pumpkin, played by Lola Tung, discovers not only that she has the chance to forge a family with these witches but also learn that this girl-boss coven slowly slips into a dark magic that is beyond their control.
“The Craft” meets “Mean Girls” may be the most accurate way to describe the tone of what Alloway is going for here, but frankly, it’s on the money as she and her co-writer, Lily Houghton, camp witch-filled romp operates in that vein. Every other line is laugh-inducing as Alloway and Houghton channel Gen-Z lingo, especially in their dialogue, as Apple and the rest of the fruits’ vernacular consists of terms like vom, gorg, or babe. It tries to strike at the heart of performativism, both in a PC manner and in its deconstructing women’s own perceptions of each other, as Apple’s girl-boss approach to sisterhood masquerades as something that is not only far sinister but also incredibly isolating. Each of these women seeks agency but is bound by a co-dependency that channels all the worst aspects of themselves.
The ladies of “Forbidden Fruits” are what keep Alloway’s vision for this working, with how perfectly attuned they are to the heightened performance style needed for a film like this. Predretti’s turn as Cherry is an absolute scene-stealer, as her high-pitched voice and slight ditsy manner are as comical as they are tragic to witness, especially given where the screenplay takes her character. Reinhardt’s turn as the cold-hearted leader of the fruits is excellent, doubling down on a mean-spirited intensity that slowly devolves into a manipulative malevolence. Tung is quite interesting as Alloway gives her the tough task of playing Pumpkin’s intentions close to the chest. As a performer, Tung sells the alluring figure to the ladies that keeps everyone, including the audience, suspicious of every action Pumpkin makes. In comparison, Shipp’s Fig is one of the group, next to Apple, that’s wholly an individual in her own right.
Shipp playing a tortured duality of being a loyal sister while furthering her own needs perfectly displays what Houghton and Alloway are trying to get at the heart of. All the dynamics between the fruits are worth the time spent deepening these twisted relationships, because the inevitable evils they face only elevate the ridiculousness to absurd levels of Giallo-esque violence and bloodshed. Alloway brings this world to love with an incredibly dialed-in team of creatives below the line, whether it’s Ciara Vernon’s production design that makes this mall feel incredibly lived in or Sarah Millman’s colorful costume design that has the fruits freaking out over to rack in the store. Hanna Park’s editing also keeps the comedic timing to a tee, cutting between the ladies with precision, tying every thread together,r including a comical reveal during the film’s end credits. Everything about “Forbidden Fruits” screams cult classic or at least an intentional attempt to make that happen. Alloway’s debut is a film that depends on riding the vibes of it all, and it’s worth doing so.
