🍒 Forbidden Fruits (2026): A Live-Watch Review from Someone Who Immediately Decided She Was Cherry
Okay. OKAY. I need to talk about Forbidden Fruits right now because I am not okay, and I need everyone to join me on this journey.
Fair warning: I may have live-tweeted this. I just paused it multiple times to jot things down, like the unhinged person I proudly am. Spoilers fairly marked, but if you haven't watched it yet... what are you doing?! Go. Now. Come back when you're done. I'll wait.
Still here? Fine. Let's go. 🍒
00:16:01 - I Paused the Movie to Declare Myself Cherry
Sixteen minutes in, I hit pause. Not because something bad happened, but because something so good happened that I needed to document my emotional state before the movie could change it.
I am Cherry. I decided. Done. Non-negotiable.
Also, this movie is giving The Craft meets Sabrina the Teenage Witch meets Kevin Smith's Mallrats, and I am OBSESSED. Like, that is a combination of things I didn’t know I needed, blended together, and yet here we are, and it is PERFECT. If you haven't seen The Craft, I'm begging you, please fix that immediately. It's required viewing. This is not a suggestion.
HOLY. SHIT.
I'm pretty sure they used Goldie Boutillier's music in this movie?! If that's confirmed, I will simply ascend. That would be everything. EVERYTHING. {one second later] Confirmed, this movie has an incredible soundtrack! And I clocked that Goldie song in less than 4 bars!
00:28:19 - Virginia Woolf Just Became My Villain Origin Story
"What did that one bitch say…"
"Virginia Woolf."
BAHAHAHAHAHAH. OMGosh. That's the best line delivery I've seen in years. Iconic. Perfect. Thank you, Lili Rienhart! I am absolutely, unequivocally stealing "what did that one bitch say" as a phrase I use in real life. My friends are going to be so tired of me.
00:30:08 - Taylor Swift has the same cat as Cherry
Cherry has the same cat as Taylor Swift. Because of COURSE she does. I love this movie so much. Also, and I'm calling it right now, that Jane doll is definitely some kind of recording device. I don't know how. I don't know why. I just know it is. Mark this timestamp.
00:32:45 - "Strict Schedule for Mental Health" 🍒
I love it. I want it on a throw pillow. I want it tattooed somewhere tasteful. How could I not be more Cherry?!? (God, I hope she doesn't end up evil.) Moving on.
00:37:42 - Okay, wait. Is Pumpkin a Plant?
I paused again. Something about Pumpkin is off, and I can't shake it. My working theory: she's not here by accident. Her mom sent her. Her mom might be Sharon? I have absolutely no evidence for this. I'm just a woman with instincts and a paused screen, and I'm going with it.
00:47:42 - LEAVE MY UGGS ALONE
They went after UGGs, and I'm taking it personally. I am a millennial. I cannot help loving what I love. I will not apologize. This is my one criticism of an otherwise flawless film. (It's not a criticism. I'm just processing.)
01:08:17 - Cherry Uses Rare Beauty Mascara
Because OF COURSE she does. I'm so in love with her. Cherry is everything. Cherry is the moment. Cherry is the reason I watch movies. I don't recognize the actress, but she's living in this role.
⚠️ SPOILER TERRITORY ⚠️ YOU WERE WARNED ⚠️
Okay, we need to go deeper. I've seen the movie three times, and it genuinely gets better with every rewatch. There are layers in this film that you simply cannot catch on your first watch, and I need to talk about them.
Apple Is Not a Witch. She's a Cult Leader.
Here's my full thesis after three watches: Apple does not believe in witchcraft. Not for a single second.
What Apple has built is a high-control group with all the hallmarks of bonding and dependency, including rituals, rules that isolate members from outside relationships (no boyfriends, the emoji-only texting rule), confession-style vulnerability sharing that she can weaponize later, and the "banishing demons" framing that gives her a socially sanctioned reason to eliminate anyone who threatens her grip.
The clearest tell? The hex on Pickle. A true believer lets the magic work. Apple engineered a real-world outcome and used the witchcraft as cover and consent. She's not practising a religion. She's controlling the crowd.
The Real Drug Was Sisterhood All Along
The Paradise scene. The placebo. This is the whole film.
The drugs are fake, and it doesn't matter. The high wasn't in the substances; it was in belonging. Women are so often starved of unconditional sisterhood that even a counterfeit version of it, run by someone who actively exploits them, feels worth staying for. Cherry and Fig have built their entire sense of self around the coven, which is exactly why Apple has so much power over them.
Apple weaponizes a genuine and beautiful human need. She takes the "girls supporting girls" mantra, something that actually means something, and hollows it out until it's a control mechanism wearing a cute slogan. Pumpkin sees through it, not because she's smarter. She has an external anchor, a real reason she's there. The seduction of Paradise never becomes her whole world.
Code Dill. CODE DILL!
I cannot believe how much is hiding in plain sight in this film.
On first watch, "Code Dill" sounds like quirky retail lingo. The store is weird, fine. But on rewatch? Pickle as in dill pickle. She's still fruit-coded even after being cast out. They have a whole radio system in place for when she shows up at the girls' store location, which means this isn't a one-off. Pickle shows up enough that they needed a code word.
That tells you everything about how haunted Pickle is. Orbiting the coven that destroyed her life, unable to fully leave. Every "Code Dill" is a woman showing up at the place that took everything from her. It is not just a funny little moment.
Pumpkin Was Never Just the New Girl
Okay. Here it is. The twist that broke me on first watch and recontextualizes the entire film on every subsequent one.
Pumpkin and Apple are half-sisters. Same father, different mothers.
Pumpkin wasn't a curious outsider who stumbled into the coven. She was hunting. I suspect she and her mother have been tracking Apple across Free Eden locations. The heart tattoo is a breadcrumb from the last store, the last time she was a mini-me, the trail they've been following. Those phone calls home throughout the film that read as sweet, grounding moments of a girl checking in with her mom, then quickly turn dark? That's two women coordinating a mission.
That is the real sisterhood running as a quiet thread underneath everything. Pumpkin's mom is her true Apple, except built on something genuine.
It also makes Lola Tung's performance so much more impressive in retrospect. She had to play Pumpkin on two levels simultaneously: the entire film, a wide-eyed newcomer to everyone around her, and underneath that, a young woman carrying this enormous weight of grief and purpose. That is a genuinely hard acting challenge, especially opposite someone as magnetic as Lili Reinhart pulling all the attention in every scene.
Final Verdict: Watch It. Then Watch It Again. Then Again.
Forbidden Fruits is giving Teen Girl Squad. It's giving Mallrats. It's just giving. It is campy and sharp and genuinely unsettling, and I loved every single second of it.
Lili Reinhart is EPIC. Full stop. This is her moment.
Go watch it. Come back when you've seen it three times. We'll talk. 🍒
Have you seen Forbidden Fruits? Who's your fruit? Drop it in the comments, and if you say Apple, I have questions.