‘The Substance’ Review: Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley Go for Broke in a Daringly Disgusting Satire Concerning the Absurdity of Modern Beauty Standards
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Ozempic, Botox, Restylane: what the hell is even in this stuff? What are we introducing to our bodies in the hopeless pursuit of physical perfection, and why? This conundrum is at the forefront of French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat's mind with her latest work, The Substance, an off-the-charts crazy condemnation of women's suffering to stay relevant in a modern world obsessed with youth and beauty. A cautionary tale of grotesque transformation and being careful what you wish for, The Substance pays homage to seminal creations of the horror genre it works within while also serving up a full-throttle vision of singularity, culminating with the year's most daring yet disgusting movies.
The crux of The Substance is Demi Moore's role as Elisabeth Sparkle, an award-winning Hollywood actress whose waning career has led her to a hosting gig on a workout television show. On her 50th birthday, Elisabeth is fired by the program's misogynistic producer, Harvey (a revoltingly cartoonish Dennis Quaid), who hopes to replace her with a younger, sexier star. As her special day continues, Elisabeth winds up in the emergency room, where an impossibly beautiful male nurse slips her a thumb drive labeled "The Substance," along with a note stating, "It changed my life." The mysterious USB turns out to be an advertisement for said substance, a drug with the power of cellular division, allowing those who take it to be reborn as the most idealized versions of themselves. At the end of her rope, Elisabeth jumps on the chance for a renaissance. She places her order: a vial of fluorescent-green injectable fluid and strict instructions that she picks up from an ultramodern deposit box in the seedy part of town. Venturing headfirst into the unknown, Elisabeth injects herself with the substance. She goes through a violent metamorphosis, pinnacling with her spine splitting apart to release her flawless, youthful counterpart, like some sort of giant feminine insect.
Reborn, refreshed, renewed, this replica, played by Margaret Qualley, names herself Sue. The film's camera is fascinated by her physical magnificence. Sue acclimates to the strict regime required by the drug and quickly rushes to become the replacement on the show hosted by Elisabeth, which she pulls off without any trouble, wowing the vile producer with just one look. As the drug requires Elisabeth and Sue to switch consciousness every seven days, the two develop a resentment for one another: Elisabeth is envious of Sue's skyrocketing career, and Sue is sickened by Elisabeth's increasing deterioration and haplessness. As their imbalance steadily increases, the struggle for control between Elisabeth and Sue flies off the handle, leading to repulsive and visceral outcomes for both halves of the whole.
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Through her hyper-ambitious approach to The Substance, Fargeat builds upon the subversive feminist themes explored in her debut film, 2017's Revenge, while exploring a new echelon of formalist filmmaking that ratchets up the unnerving, stomach-churning atmosphere of the movie. The Substance combines Kubrickian interiors and music cues with splashes of monstrous body horror à la Cronenberg and De Palma-esque blood spurts all over unsuspecting crowds. While the director pays tribute to such pillars of genre filmmaking, there is nothing derivative about her vision, which turns up the volume with every new sequence, eventually leaving the audience so repulsed that they have no other option but nervous laugh. This strategy allows the film to move into high-camp territory as it hurtles toward its jaw-dropping finale piece.
Visually, the film balances a cold asceticism with a candy-colored glossiness. Cinematographer Benjamin Kracun shifts gears as the film jumps back and forth between Elisabeth and Sue, capturing the former's increasing instability with kinetic handheld camera work and the latter with a hyper-stylized veneer reminiscent of a sexed-up pop music video. Shot in just a handful of locations, the director and her team utilize the sparsity and negative space of their sleek, ultramodern spaces until they surrender them to total chaos, emphasizing the perspectives of their female leads and their evolving headspaces as they struggle for absolute authority.
Kudos to the sound team behind The Substance for employing the grossest and most convincing foley work out of any film in recent memory. We hear the sounds of needles penetrating skin, contorted bodies laboriously slogging down hallways, and gallons of blood spewing from a multitude of orifices. The movie's minimal dialogue only heightens its genius sound design, equivocating the two elements in ways rarely seen on screen. British composer Raffertie delivers an eclectic score that incorporates contemporary classics and bombastic music queues from cinema's past (2001: A Space Odessey, Vertigo), along with offering his own creations: moody, synth-driven techno tracks that are like the black sheep siblings of the Challengers score.
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Since its Cannes premiere, The Substance has been hailed as Moore's major comeback. Once among Hollywood's highest-paid actresses, the starlet has been largely sidelined by the spotlight for the past two decades. It is safe to say we never anticipated seeing Moore in this type of role, which leaves her physically and emotionally exposed to the core in the face of her diminishing celebrity. As Elisabeth, Moore is deeply troubled by her own self-hatred and the loneliness she encounters in a world that no longer sees her. Moore embodies this with a dynamic that ranges from pitiful to deranged. Comparisons can be drawn between Moore in The Substance and Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl: two women whose time in the limelight saw them marginalized as faces and bodies to be objectified, now harnessing their public images and pushing the boundaries of expectation. Qualley's career has become defined by her collaboration with fascinating filmmakers, and Fargeat's script feels inspired by Qualley's natural beauty and enigmatic presence, particularly engaged with capturing the actress's bodily details in extreme close-ups.
While The Substance stuns with its pedal-to-the-metal build-up to catharsis, its ultra-satirical vision of female self-hatred in the contemporary world feels as though it chases itself in circles, never breaking through to any thematic revelations. Elisabeth's personal history is not explored, which makes it challenging to totally understand her turmoil in the face of aging. There is miscommunication between what Elisabeth sees in the mirror and what we witness as the audience (Moore looks fantastic at 61), which may point to the unseen self-loathing experienced by women in the face of modern-day expectations. Still, the lack of exposition concerning Elisabeth's backstory leads to difficulties in fully comprehending her emotional state. Much more grating is our broken understanding of Sue's character. Leaning into the satire, the film sees Sue as the ultimate feminine fantasy, almost with an ever-present glittery sheen that reflects off the hot pink leotard she wears in her new show. This objectification leans into Sue's stiltedness compared to Elisabeth's raw emotion, obscuring the rules of the substance under which the two allegedly share the same consciousness. Maybe Fargeat was angling to subvert expectations, but we would have loved to have seen the wretched men in The Substance face some sort of retribution instead of all of the punishment being placed upon the women who are simply trying to adhere to the impossible standards society sets upon them.
Do not be afraid of The Substance. Despite its over-the-top goriness, its overall vision makes for a wild and rewarding ride, one that should be experienced in a packed theater with a hooting, hollering audience. Fargeat's unique sensibility expands our concepts on "high and low" cinema, combining balls-to-the-wall genre elements with a sleek formalism that makes for an entirely fresh experience. With its major cross-over appeal to horror fans, The Substance is well-poised to amaze and nauseate audiences as it makes its way into theaters.
4/5
‘The Substance’ world premiered in competition at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the prize for Best Screenplay. The movie went on to win the Audience Award in the Midnight Madness section at the Toronto International Film Festival. ‘The Substance’ hits theaters across the United States on Friday, September 20, with distribution handled by MUBI. Watch the trailer below: