Posted by The Substance; 2024; Written & Directed by Coralie Fargeat; Starring Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid; Rated R; 2h20m; Mubi; Released September 20
“I know writers who use subtext. They’re cowards.” – Garth Merenghi (or really Matthew Holness on Garth Maregnhi’s Dark Place… ahem, anyway)
The Substance is not a subtle film, but no subtext is needed. Writer-Directed Coralie Fargeat (her previous film 2017’s Revenge turned the rape-revenge flick on its head) tells you directly, easily, and a multitude of times what exactly she is trying to say. This isn’t a dig. The subtle-as-a-brick-to-the-face method of telling the story is one of the many amazing features that come together to create The Substance.
The Substance is a satire of industry, or a modern fairy tale if you will (a particular scene invokes the witch/ingenue dynamic to great effect). It’s a big, brash, and bloody body horror. Body horror abounds, most magnificently, but the gooey layer underneath is a compelling story of gender expectations and how they affect women, tearing down and questioning; all while an industry uses, abuses, chews up, and spits out the women working within.
Such a story needs to be direct; too many people don’t understand messaging, metaphor, and what a story is trying to say. (We all know that section of the internet that has never realized all their favorite media has always been progressive. When did Star Trek go woke? September 8th, 1966). Just because it’s blunt, doesn’t mean it’s bad. Far from it. The Substance won Best Screenplay at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. It’s a perfectly realized world, sharply written in dialogue and overall. With an uncompromising vision, Fargeaut does not let the viewer leave without knowing exactly what she’s saying.
And she says this in innovative and energizing ways. The Substance is an unholy mix of David Cronenberg (Videodrome, The Fly, outside of the Body Horror, how she shoots much of the film reflects the Canadian maestro of serious body horror), Brian Yuzna (Society, Bride of Re-animator), Frank Hennenlotter (Basketcase, Brain Damage), The Portrait of Dorian Grey, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; with a dash of Stanley Kubrick (yes, that’s a lot of men writers and directors to reference for a woman-based story). Even with these can’t-miss influences, this is Fargeat’s film through and through. It feels personal and driven, melding the touch points into a gorgeous monster of a feature.
Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) has just turned 50, and while her aerobics show is still a hit, greasy and sleazy producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid, playing the slimiest character of his career since Reagan just two weeks ago) determines she’s now over the hill and fires her. (Is the grossest thing in the movie Quaid eating shrimp as the camera sits two inches away from his mouth? Maybe). Elisabeth is soon let in on a new experimental medical treatment, The Substance, allowing her to switch to a younger body for a week at a time. After the first of many shocking sequences, she reemerges as “Sue” (Margarette Qualley) and is hired to replace herself on the show. (Both of these shows are strange on their own, they remind me of the show the pervy mortician in Friday the 13th The Final Chapter insists on watching before his neck is torn open). Of course, the clearly defined rules, meant to be strictly kept, are soon broken and it all goes to shit, or more aptly goop.
Fargeat uses a wide variety of ways to tear through the story (it’s 2h20 min but flies), from shot choices (cinematography by Benjamin Kracun), color and set use (production design by Stanislas Reydellet), amazing costuming (Emmanuelle Youchnovski), and the best uses of fish eye lenses since anything by Yorgos Lanthimos. Add in a driving score by Raffertie, punctuated by bassy BBBBWWWAAAMS, and the audience is continually ill at ease, but also invested. It’s as enticing as the offer of a new youth, setting a terrifyingly engaging atmosphere for the audience to live in. Again, this is never subtle and I applaud the largess of the storytelling.
This is all held together by the pairing of Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley as the two sides of Elisabeth/Sue. Moore plays Elisabeth with soul-bearing honesty. She’s ferocious and compelling in a performance bound to be just as ignored as Toni Collette was for Hereditary come award season. She’s no doubt pulling from the experience of being an over-50 actress in the spotlight for decades now (while Elisabeth is 50, Demi is 62, but no comment other than that), especially as the spotlight has roamed and returned over those years. The Substance should keep the attention on Moore as far from a faded star, but a powerhouse. How many other powerhouses have been pushed aside as they’ve aged, being forced into small bits; the maiden is gone, but they aren’t just mothers and crones.
Qualley also shines as the renewed starlet, “Sue”. She certainly has redeemed herself after the atrocious accented performance in Drive Away Dolls (I know she’s been around in other flicks including Poor Things and Once Upon A Time… in Hollywood but that’s my real entry point into notice). While she always serves as a foil to Elisabeth, she lives on her own with a captivating allure. Sue isn’t merely “Young Elisabeth”, but her own person as Hyde is separate from Jekyll, despite they truly being One.
The Substance a movie about flesh – fresh, funky, and everything else it can do, so we need to have prothestics and other practical effects. To truly work, it requires a real, tangible feel; something you can reach out and touch and squirm as it shifts, morphs, and surprises with beautifully designed abject horror. With special effects supervised by Pierre Hugueny and akin to the best of Screamin’ Mad George, Fargeat leans unflinching into the body horror, relishing uncomfortable close ups of puckering holes, cuts, tears, and blemishes While Yuzna’s influence is touched on with The Substance itself as bright green as the Re-Agent of Re-animator; by the end it calls out to Yuzna’s grossest outting Society. If you know, you know. Happy shunting. Without giving anything away, while he first two acts are rife in body horror, the third act lives in the impressive zenith’s of Henenlotter, Yuzna, and Cronenberg’s nightmares for a tour de force climax that you can’t believe is in a multiplex. The final shot sequence is one for the ages.
This has been a hard review to write, as I don’t to spoil a second but so much of what works relies on moments and visuals. I want to scream out how well they all worked and why. But trust me, The Substance is another innovative, original (despite notable influences), wonderfully shocking horror masterpiece in a year chock full of them. Fargeat crafts one hell of a film, with a lot to say and show. It’s insane, powerful, and grotesque.
I loved it (just in case I was too subtle).
PS – The opening quote is from an amazing TV show you should watch now. I never saw it or even heard of it until a few years ago until I saw it billed as “Scrubs for people who like Twin Peaks.” Seek it out, six episodes of parody of cheap sci-fi/horror shows made by a full of himself author. Glorious.
