Forbidden Fruits (2026)

dir Meredith Alloway

Instant cult classic and unfortunately the most relatable film I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

I really liked this one. Like, a lot. Like I’m sitting in my car in the parking lot and writing furiously so I don’t forget anything. Watching this felt like those TikToks where people say words like “walk”, “park”, “car”, and “treat” in front of their dogs. But yeah this was pretty much exactly what my life was like from 2017-2019 when I worked at LUSH.

All mall employees received discounts at other stores, but LUSH employees got stuff for free. We were hot shit around the Mission Viejo mall. We were bitchy and beautiful with a thick layer of smiley passive aggression on top. And our hands were so, so soft from all the lotion. None of this has anything to do with Forbidden Fruits except it has EVERYTHING to do with Forbidden Fruits. LUSH was where I met my crazy best friend who tried to sabotage my relationship with the love of my life. The same crazy best friend that did indeed contribute to another friend’s mental breakdown- and YES! This other friend was also a LUSH employee!!! Forbidden Fruits is a fucking documentary, babe!

Even if the plot looked like shit, I probably would’ve gone to see anything with a main character named Fig. I mean, helloooo. Alexandra Shipp played a beautiful Fig. Nodded real hard when she yelled that no one fucking names their baby Fig. Duh! I won’t say either of our government names here but trust that my mom would’ve checked herself into a psychiatric hold if she truly was considering naming me after a fruit. Lola Tung as Pumpkin does great as the audience insert. We all get to see this beautiful new world unfold through her eyes. Absolutely stellar character work from Victoria Pedretti who really steals the show as Cherry. I’ve only seen her in the Netflix series You, where I thought she was charming, sure, but now I fear I may be a little obsessed. Time to deep dive into her filmography ASAP. And you know what? I think Emma Chamberlain killed her acting debut. Absolutely adore her. She totally got all of Pickle’s silliness and tragedy just right. I do think it’s hilarious how much better her wig was than Lili Reinhart’s. Apple was like The main girlie, we couldn’t have done better than an Amazon synthetic? Lili pulled it off though. She delivered that ending monologue like her life depended on it. I don’t want to hear anything but applause for her performance.

Best part of the movie going experience was arriving to the theater and getting to join the herd of gays that were all heading to Forbidden Fruits. Gotta say I was a little disappointed in the gays, though. These were not my people. Everybody JUMPED UP immediately after the film and tried to skedaddle as fast as they could, which only made them look like idiots when there was another scene in the middle of the credits. Always disappointing when people don’t hang back to pay respects to the full cast, crew, and production team. Losers!