The Substance by Coralie Fargeat isa gory, self-indulgent, body horror film set in Los Angeles, opening with Elisabeth Sparkle (played by Demi More) receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
She is young, she is hot, and she is what everyone wants and wants to be.
A time jump reveals Elisabeth is no longer the adored actor she once was. She is now performing a Jane Fonda 80s fitness dance show; she is ‘outdated’ and she is turning 50. Causing her to be cut from her show by the aptly named executive, Harvey (played by Dennis Quaid).
With Elisabeth subsequently spiralling out of control, she gets her hands on a mysterious drug that is meant to make her young again.
Of course, life is not that easy, and the drug turns into her biggest nightmare. The film then gets more outrageous by the minute, in competition with itself, every scene is trying to outdo the previous one.
Directed by Coralie Fargeat, a French filmmaker who specialises in horror movies; previously, she was best known for her film, Revenge. Also starring a female lead.
Throughout the film, there were many visual references to Stanley Kubrick, and the set design was replicated from THE SHINNING in at least three scenes in this film.
One can only be entertained by body horror for so long before getting tired of it. With a run time of 2 hours and 20 minutes, by the end, it felt played out and meaningless.
Not only was there an immense amount of blood and guts, which is expected in a film in its genre. For what felt like half of the film, Elisabeth and her younger version, Sue (played by Margaret Qualley) were nude.
Keeping in mind the film was marketed as a feminist, anti-beauty-standards fight the power flick, the amount of time I spent looking at these women’s private parts, I started thinking, has this just crossed the line into pornographic?
This thought was cemented when the scantily clad, gyrating Sue appeared on the screen for her dance fitness program. With close shots of her body lasting an uncomfortable amount of time.
Demi Moore’s acting was the saving grace of this film; she was able to balance the feeling of self-loathing and inferiority many women in that age group develop. But, at times this had a comical edge which seemed as if she wasn’t taking herself too seriously.
This caused the film to become confusing, as an audience member I felt empathy toward her but then as the film continued and she was compared to her younger counterpart as if her ageing body was the punchline of a bad joke.
This comparison continued throughout the entire film to a point where the film was saying that older women are ugly and should stay in their boxes. Only once in the film Demi Moore’s character was complimented on her beauty.
The use of music was interesting and dynamic, for example after Elisabeth became young for the first time- techno/dance music blasted. Feeding into the youthfulness of this character. At other times, the use of sound was an attack on the senses- the final twenty minutes was a cacophony and distracted from what was going on, on screen.
In the final hour, the film was reduced to shock value, and it felt as if every scene should have been cut by a couple of minutes.
The use of satire to critic the entertainment industry heavily relied on stereotypes of what the public would imagine the industry to be like, making it lazy.
Throughout the entire film, I expected to experience some kind of revelation about how this movie really did prove society and those evil Hollywood executives wrong, that women over 50 are still beautiful and their lives aren’t over.
Instead, they delivered a shallow film about blood, guts, and pretty women being naked all the time and that no matter how pretty they are, they will never be good enough.