Both a throwback to old-school practical-effects monster horror and a present-day breakthrough for writer-director Coralie Fargeat, “The Substance” goes deep into the issues (and tissues) of physical beauty and the delicate nature of self-confidence.
It’s a battle not worth fighting anymore: Horror movies – especially this kind – do not win Oscars. But even though this is a director’s film, loaded with style and cheeky dark comedy, it would be nothing without the pathos provided by Demi Moore as Elisabeth Sparkle.
It won’t happen, but it would be both progressive and right of the Oscars to give the Best Actress award to Moore, who at 61 is in that black-hole age range for actresses – too old to be a star, too young to play the wise elder. Getting roles in this age range is hard, getting good roles is harder, getting an amazing role like this is almost unheard of.
“The Substance” (2024)
Director: Coralie Fargeat
Writer: Coralie Fargeat
Stars: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid
Extremely weird science
Her best stretch of acting comes in what’s also the pivotal, wrenching sequence. Elisabeth – the star of a long-running-but-just-ended fitness show — has been asked on a date by a nice, if obsessively admiring, man of her age. She makes herself up tastefully, but she can’t leave her apartment because she keeps seeing the billboard of Sue (Margaret Qualley, “The Nice Guys,” “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood”), the show’s new 20-something star, outside her bay window.
In a movie about aging, “The Substance” exists out of time in fascinating ways. It’s set in modern times, as we see cellphones and the sci-fi injectable serum of the title, but Elisabeth’s apartment and the TV studio are decorated and outfitted like the Seventies. Dennis Quaid chews scenery – and shrimp, and other food, with the camera in his mug — as producer Harvey.
“The Substance” is a glorious yet planned-out mishmash of styles. Quaid is acting in a different movie from Moore and Qualley, but the darkly comedic sound design, close-ups and fast edits in Harvey’s scenes are purposeful style choices.
Fargeat flirts with her style overcoming “The Substance,” but it does not – initially because the sci-fi details are fascinating, and later because Elisabeth and Sue’s situation is so horrifically bizarre. At first, it’s merely intriguingly weird, as the black-market but professionally packaged Substance allows Elisabeth to become the young and perky Sue for seven days.
There are no side effects … so long as she switches back to being Elisabeth on alternating weeks. Although we kind of know where this is going, “The Substance” never loses its magnetic attraction, even on the dozenth sequence of smash-cut close-ups on the tightly packaged abs and butt of ratings-busting Sue.
Self-inflicted horror
Throw in the fact that Moore and Qualley are nude in the many “switching” scenes, and this movie could’ve been nothing but titillation under the hand of a lesser filmmaker. But my attention was honestly held by the nuances of the themes, as well.
“The Substance” could be a modern breakthrough if major awards shows said “It’s long past time that we drop our genre biases,” but the commentary itself is timeless. Refreshingly, it’s not a woke lecture about how the patriarchy has commodified women.
In that aforementioned standout sequence of Elisabeth angrily trying to make herself look young and hot for her date, Fargeat makes it evident that Elisabeth has done this to herself. Physically, in the sense that she purchased The Substance; psychologically in the sense that she has defined herself by her looks for her whole career and life.
When Elisabeth-Sue says “I’m still me,” the tragedy isn’t that no one believes her; the tragedy is that they might be right to not believe her. Someone whose worth is defined by their physical beauty – or who always falls back on that whenever other aspects of their lives go wrong – might not have a “me” to be.
A gonzo final act takes the body horror to such heights that I was smiling at the execution of the dark comedy. But I still felt the heartbreaking nature of the story. “The Substance,” unlike Elisabeth and Sue, finds a perfect balance.