‘ The Substance’ has everything you want
“The Substance” is smart, gross, funny, brave, maddening, insightful, hard to watch, impossible to turn away from – what else do you want in a movie?
Coralie Fargeat’s film – she wrote and directed – spares nothing in its skewering of our obsession with beauty, the shallowness of popular culture, the addictive nature of fame, the chew-them-up-and-spit-them-out mentality toward women in entertainment, the sacrifice to try to stay young and relevant.
It’s a horror movie disguised as social commentary, or maybe the other way around. It’s good at both. Whatever it is, it is all out, all the time.
Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley are brilliant. Dennis Quaid is actually back to being Dennis Quaid, not a cardboard cutout of his former exciting self.
I don’t want to sugarcoat things – there is a copious amount of nudity, a lot of gross-out gore, violence and the last act is straight out of shock-horror campy movie. (There are a lot of references to other horror films, Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” in particular.) The audience groaned and yelled, “No!” more than once, and I did, too.
Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, a famous actress – the opening shows workers building her star on the Walk of Fame, a device that in itself will become a commentary on the disposable nature of fame. Now she hosts a fitness show.
But once Elisabeth turns 50, her manager Harvey (Quaid), a greasy little excuse for a human being, cuts her loose, with a lunch he doesn’t even stick around for – and while he is there, his scarfing on shrimp is shown in such extreme close-up it’s more stomach-turning than the gore we see later. He sends a bouquet with a card that says, “You were amazing,” emphasis on “were.”
Elisabeth decides to try something called The Substance, which will make you a better you, or some such generic bromide. The gist is that you literally be-come a better you in a different body. But every seven days, without fail, you must switch back to the old you. Seven days later, you switch again. The instructions are loaded with caveats, including “REMEMBER YOU ARE ONE.”
She gives it a try – it is surprisingly intricate, with lots of equipment. Immediately after injecting a fluid, she crashes to the floor. And a newer, younger version of herself emerges from her spine. We see everything. As Moore’s version lies on the bathroom floor, the supposed new-and-improved version (Qualley) stitches up her back, puts on some clothes, and heads to an audition for “the new Elisabeth Sparkle.” Having to come up with a name quickly, she goes with Sue. Harvey loves her and gives her the new version of Elisabeth’s old show. She immediately becomes a huge star.
But after seven days, she has to go back to her dormant state while Elisabeth becomes active. And bored. As the weeks go on, she must watch Sue’s star rise. Not surprisingly, Sue is increasingly reluctant to let go of her newfound fame. But going over the deadline even a little results in accelerated aging of body parts. First, it’s a finger. Later, it will be much, much more. Elisabeth calls the mystery number and casually asks how you reverse the process. You don’t, she’s told. Elisabeth grows increasingly resentful of Sue, while Sue is more and more willing to endanger Elisabeth by hanging onto herself longer and longer.
Remember that REMEMBER YOU ARE ONE warning?
Harvey offers Sue the network’s New Year’s Eve show, a huge opportunity. Of course, you can’t take a week off to rehearse such an important gig. And then the wheels, only ever partially on, come off completely.
Fargeat goes wild but never lets the story veer out of control. At some point, she shifts the responsibility to the audience watching, craving, demanding the next and best and thinnest and most beautiful, and she makes the audience – in the film and watching the film – pay.