Review: The Substance

Image courtesy of MUBI.

Coralie Fargeat's gore-splattered, provocative, and completely outrageous "The Substance" should come with a warning about the dangers of lock-jaw, considering how many times that appendage is likely to drop during its 140-minute running time. Fargeat's Cannes sensation is stylistically bold, incredibly acted - especially Demi Moore in her finest performance in years - and sure to shock the feint of heart.

A parody on society's impossible beauty standards and the fixation on staying young forever, the picture follows the story of an actress-turned-fitness-guru named Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore). There's a phenomenal sequence early in the picture in which we watch - through a sequence of overhead shots - as Elisabeth gets her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and then how it cracks over time, begins to fade, and even falls victim to a messy eater.

When we meet her at the film's beginning, Elisabeth is just past her prime - that is, at least in the eyes of the misogynist executives who control her career, especially one played as the biggest sleazeball on earth by Dennis Quaid - and gets the boot from her daytime fitness show. 

Shortly thereafter, she stumbles upon a proclaimed miracle drug known as The Substance that supposedly reverses aging. Well, that's one way of explaining it. After injecting herself, Elisabeth's back cracks open and a younger version of herself (Margaret Qualley) pops out. The way it works is that only one of the two can be conscious at any given time and must, therefore, tend to the needs of the other while the other is in slumber. It also means that choices made by the one can affect the other.

Qually's Sue auditions and lands the gig for the sexed-up fitness program. I'm not sure if Fargeat being a French director is the reason why the fitness show sequences are so over-the-top and it's difficult to discern whether she is lampooning such things to a delirious degree or if that's how the French actually view American television programs. Regardless, these scenes are colorful.

As Sue becomes more famous, she has more of an incentive to stay in the land of the living longer, thereby leaving Elisabeth slumbering and gradually fading away. When Elisabeth is awake, she begins to notice alarming decay due to Sue's carelessness. A rivalry between the two eventually gets, shall we say, pretty out of hand.

"The Substance" is a picture that starts out as a slickly filmed, highly exaggerated satire but eventually becomes more of a body horror nightmare. It is often imaginatively grotesque but almost to the degree that it stops being gross through desensitization. There's a final scene during which a third figure who makes their way into the world due to The Substance gets up on stage before an audience, and the result gives off a vibe of the finale of Peter Jackson's ultra-gory "Dead Alive." The film also features what has to be the funniest scene ever involving an egg beater.

Fargeat's previous best known work in the United States is the bloody thriller "Revenge," which is also memorable and occasionally shocking. But "The Substance" is a gigantic leap forward. This is a film that takes a subject ripe for satire - the fixation on beauty and youth - and does something unique with it.

It's also among a small handful of films that have done an incredible job of making Los Angeles seem like such a foreboding place. The eerie, low-angle shots of palm trees swaying in the wind - not to mention the world's most impossibly long corridor - and the creepy scenes on film shoot sets give the picture a vibe that often reminded me of David Lynch's neo-noir classic "Mulholland Drive" and, more recently, Bertrand Bonello's unsettling "The Beast." 

For those who can stomach it, "The Substance" is likely to be among the more memorable moviegoing experiences of 2024. Moore gives an incredible performance that ranges from horrifying to deeply sympathetic and Qualley is also impressive as her nemesis. This is a movie that is so outrageous and shocking for much of its running time that one might wonder how the filmmakers could possibly outdo themselves for the finale. Suffice it to say, they do. This is one warped movie - and I mean that as a compliment.