THE SUBSATNCE Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Coralie Fargeat
Stars: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid, Yann Bean, Tom Morton, Hugo Diego Garcia, Robin Greer.
This is sure to be one of the most heavily discussed films of 2024. It doesn’t just dip its toe into the murky world of the body horror subgenre that is the preserve of filmmakers like David Cronenberg, but it dives right in head first. The Substance is the sophomore feature from feminist French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat following 2017’s Revenge, and it eviscerates our current obsession with youth and beauty, celebrity and fame and success, gender, sexual identity, the double standards within the entertainment industry, and the lengths to which some people are prepared to go in order to achieve success.
Demi Moore, in her first major film role in over a decade, plays Elizabeth Sparkle, a massive Oscar winning film star turned aerobic fitness guru who discovers that her career is in decline. Hollywood producers prefer young and beautiful and her tv show is cancelled on her fiftieth birthday. Posters and billboards featuring her image are being removed. Following a car accident, she receives treatment in a hospital where a young medical intern gives her a USB stick that contains a brief informercial about something called “the substance”, claiming that it changed his life.
Upon learning that Harvey has advertised for a younger 18-30 year old woman to replace her, Elizabeth makes a phone call and obtains the treatment. The substance is a black-market self-replication treatment that creates a “better”, younger and more vibrant version of her although the two are still intimately connected as one. But the treatment comes with a set of specific rules that if not followed can have horrific consequences. The two personalities are required to switch bodies every seven days without fail, with one resting unconsciously out of sight.
Injecting herself with the substance Elizabeth passes out and gives “birth” to a younger, beautiful clone named Sue (played by Margaret Qualley) in a scene certain to have many looking away from the screen. But as Sue’s career takes off, she begins to ignore the rules, and this affects Elizabeth who begins to age rapidly. It’s like a cross between the gaudy Showgirls and a female variation on The Picture Of Dorian Gray as Elizabeth’s body begins to age and deteriorate while Sue makes the most of her rising fame. The influence of Cronenberg and David Lynch is obvious.
The Substance has been superbly shot in heightened style by cinematographer Benjamin Kracun, who creates a varied colour palette for the film. He also works in close up much of the time, which makes the material appear visually quite ugly, especially in scenes in which Harvey, Dennis Quaid’s repulsive producer character, dines on lobster, spitting and chewing obscenely, and this is probably a deliberate stylistic choice. The production design from Stanislas Reydellet is also visually arresting.
Fargeat is a visceral filmmaker who prefers practical effects where possible, and there are plenty of gross out moments throughout. There is some positively grotesque prosthetic makeup that transforms Elizabeth into a hideously disfigured monster. The film’s over the top climax descends into a crescendo of gore and is bathed in blood. However, with a generous running time of 140 minutes the film is a little too long, and some parts become a bit repetitive.
This is a brave performance for Moore (who in the 80s and 90s cemented her place as part of the so-called Brat Pack)and she makes the most of the role with a fearless performance that captures both Elizabeth’s strengths but also her vulnerability and sense of self-loathing. Qualley (the daughter of Andie MacDowell) is also very good as the desperate, driven and narcissistic ingenue Sue. Quaid is also good, and he chews the scenery as the obnoxious, sleazy, self-centred, sexist and leering Harvey. An unseen Yann Bean provides the sinister voice for the anonymous person behind the black-market drug.
The Substance has already won awards on the festival circuit and this pitch black, savage but stylish take on fame and obsession is sure to polarise audiences when it hits cinemas.
★★★★
