The Substance
“Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself?”
It sounds like the rhetorical opening line of an MLM pitch preying on the insecurities of women and in The Substance, that’s by design. This ballsy sophomore feature from writer/director Coralie Fargeat delivers a modern fable about the kind of conditioned self-loathing that festers in women of a certain age and a certain industry, culminating in a self destruction I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing in such practically gory detail since David Cronenberg’s The Fly. A film of few words but many emotions, The Substance is proving a curious crowd pleaser; early reviews have called it “a fearless takedown of absurd beauty standards”, “an enraged scream in cinematic form” and, in one succinct summation, “absolutely f*cking insane.” I call it the best film I’ve seen this year.
Demi Moore is Elisabeth Sparkle, an Oscar winner who has aged out of A-list roles and into a twilight career hosting Jane Fonda-style aerobics classes on network television. On her 50th birthday her boss Harvey (Dennis Quaid) puts her out to pasture, informing her of her forced retirement while half masticated prawns roll around in his wide open trap. Unable to protest, Elisabeth leaves and gets into a pretty gnarly car crash on the way home. Due to luck or perhaps aerobics prowess, she is uninjured, which prompts her suspiciously yassified nurse to label her an “ideal candidate”. Quel intrigue. Later, she finds that the nurse has snuck a USB into her bag – it’s labelled ‘The Substance’. She slots it into her TV and watches.
The MLM pitch begins and Elisabeth sits through a presentation on a dubious product that “unlocks your DNA”, releasing another version of yourself that’s “younger, more beautiful, more perfect.” She’s sold but the devil’s in the details, and the details aren’t listed in the product disclosure agreement. We then follow Elisabeth to her Click & Collect location – a PO box in a dodgy, uninhabited downtown warehouse past a roller door that doesn’t fully open and a hallway lined with posters for exterminators. Inside hers - 503 - is an ominous cardboard box and all her hopes for a rejuvenated future.
The instructions for this at-home cosmedical procedure would scare off a more rational person but Elisabeth thinks nothing of injecting herself with the single use activator of nuclear green liquid. She’s not quite sure what the seven daily stabiliser shots are for but she’s about to, because out of her back like the Neomorphs in Alien: Covenant bursts Sue (Margaret Qualley), the younger, better but not separate version of Elisabeth. For seven days Elisabeth gets to live as Sue, topping herself up with stabiliser fluid drawn from Elisabeth’s comatose body still lying on the bathroom floor. Once the week is up they must switch back so for a week in the life of Elisabeth. Easy. Except, when the part of you that resents your age gets a new lease on life, there’s a chance she won’t want to go back to the way things were last week. Customer service, we have a problem.
And therein lies the beautiful horror of The Substance, a depiction of war with the self being the surest path to total destruction. Sue swoops in and snaps up the vacancy at the network, providing the perfect, youthful face of erotic aerobics Harvey envisioned. It’s the ultimate validation that Elisabeth’s insecurities are correct and the ultimate do-over that solves her predicament. But the more hungry Sue becomes to stay young and beautiful - and avoid returning to her former body - the worse things go for Elisabeth. Instead of tapping into the wisdom that comes with age, Sue is doomed to repeat Elisabeth’s mistakes and wave at personal growth as it passes by. It’s self hatred and delusion at its saddest. And in an age where 20-somethings are getting ‘preventative Botox’ and buccal fat removal surgery, it’s a message that couldn’t be more resonant.
The Substance premiered at Cannes where it won Best Screenplay for its writer/director. Tracing the footsteps of fellow French director Julia Ducournau, Fargeat (who also co-edited the film) proves herself an auteur with her second feature, an appropriately bloody follow-up to her 2017 thriller Revenge. That was a film I found by chance while *ahem* sailing the high seas and it became one of my favourites of the year. But where Revenge was a Mad Max-style exacting of justified female rage on three men who had it coming, The Substance is about the internalisation of the horrible outside pressures exerted on women, and the negative self-talk and violence we enact on ourselves in a society that is still uncomfortably patriarchal. It’s a cathartic, joyous, upsetting and freeing experience all at once, and it speaks to something in anyone who’s ever felt a little bit physically monstrous.
There’s one scene in particular that I felt on a cellular level and it’s got nothing to do with blood or body horror or hilariously extreme set pieces. In a rare moment of quiet, Elisabeth gets ready to go on a date with a refreshingly normal man she went to highschool with. She’s done up to the nines and she appears a gorgeous, confident woman. All she needs to do is walk out the door. But there’s a billboard of Sue right outside her window that she can’t look away from. She puts on more makeup and a scarf to conceal her decolletage. She tries to leave again and catches a distorted glimpse of herself in the front doorknob. She returns to the bathroom and puts more makeup on. Too much, now. She realises it. More faffing ensues. Finally, she looks at herself in the mirror, disgust bubbling up to the surface. She wipes her lipstick away in defeat, then angrily smears her makeup all over her face, ripping off her false eyelashes with a hatred only ever shown towards the self. I did exactly the same thing at 14 before I was supposed to meet my friends at the shops, when my skin was really bad and my makeup couldn’t conceal it. It was a formative low point, and one Fargeat recognises in her audience as a shared experience.
That a film can so expertly contrast such dark, resonant themes with such a heightened tone is testament to Fargeat’s vision. It’s unclear what’s reality and what’s a dysmorphic, paranoid take on reality, emphasised by the use of unflattering fish-eye close ups and distorting angles. There’s also a surreal feeling to the immediate world Elisabeth inhabits, from her 80s coded apartment to the giant Dorian Gray-like portrait of herself overlooking her living room, to the not-quite Hollywoodness of her apartment surrounds. It feels as though there’s a veil that exists between Elisabeth and the real world, and combined with the fact that she doesn’t seem to have any friends or family, it builds a great sense of isolation and vulnerability around Elisabeth. Few of these details are commented on; rather, they are just things to observe that strengthen our connection to Elisabeth. The other thing that does this are the central performances.
Having been a fan of Margaret Qualley for some time now, I was sold the minute I saw her in the trailer. And she is indeed wonderful as Sue, the increasingly parasitic spawn who represents the ickiest depths of Elisabeth’s psyche all wrapped up in an enviable hard body. But it’s Demi Moore who really brings The Substance to life, turning in the most dedicated, brave and vulnerable performance of her career. At 61 years young Moore has a respectable filmography and doesn’t often say yes to new projects; it took real guts to take on the role of Elisabeth, knowing it would mean baring it all (figuratively and literally) and sitting in the makeup chair for 6-9 hours prior to shooting. As Elisabeth’s physical state morphs and deteriorates, Moore must rely solely on her eyes and body movements to evolve her character. It’s a performance I never expected, but I left with a newfound obsession with the Brat Pack’s most fearless member.
The Substance manages to be both urgently essential and very, very funny, which helps to assert its moral of self acceptance in the face of societal judgement. Elisabeth learns far too late that there are worse things to be than 50 and living in a stylish Body Double inspired apartment in Hollywood. She squanders every opportunity she has to find validation outside the physical and by the end, the horrifying physical is all she has left to accept. As her plight becomes more and more gloriously ridiculous Fargeat draws on inspiration from her idols David Cronenberg, John Carpenter and David Lynch to create an image you can’t unsee – and can’t help but cheer on from the cinema seats. There are hints of The Thing, Carrie, The Neon Demon, Antiviral and Possession all swirling around in The Substance and if you’re a fan of any of those, you’ll lap it up.
I feel a violent kind of love for this film; it’s helped heal some of my own self-consciousness about the ugly bitch still living inside me and I can only assume, from the response it’s been getting, that it spoke to others, too. The Substance is a cathartic, bonkers and wholly enjoyable film that you must submit to fully. And you may as well; you’re not getting any younger.
Verdict
☆☆☆☆☆
The Substance is in cinemas this Thursday. Go in your trackies without makeup; no one will care.
