GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★1/2
Rated: R18+
Directed by: Coralie Fargeat
Written by: Coralie Fargeat
Edited by: Coralie Fargeat
Starring: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid.
‘Pretty girls should always smile.’
A film of extremes, The Substance is a commentary about Hollywood’s middle-aged, white male’s view of the female form.
There is a male version of, the Other: a beautiful young male doctor introduces an aging fitness guru, Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) to The Substance, himself a demonstration to the Oscar winning actress that she can create a better version of herself.
‘It will change your life.’
Goes to show that men are feeling the push to be beautiful as well. But here the focus is on the aging actress, Elizabeth.
The action of ‘the substance’ is shown by the injection of green liquid into the joke of a raw egg. The yoke then pushes out another yoke, like a clone of itself.
And the film continues with this demonstrative view of the procedure, of the process of aging, to the birth of a young body; the splicing of a pupil into two, to another eye growing within another, all shown in macro, close so there’s no-where else to look but at the unfiltered image of the beautiful juxtaposed with the grotesque.
Director and writer, Coralie Fargeat states, ‘Bodies here are going to be tyrannized, ridiculed, destroyed, the same way I truly believe society destroys women with all the rules that we are silently taught to follow.’
‘Women’s bodies. THE SUBSTANCE is a film about women’s bodies.’
After Elizabeth Sparkle is told by Harvey (Denis Quaid) – while feeding his face with prawns, sound included- the producer of her fitness show, that at age 50, It Stops, Elizabeth can’t help but think a better version of herself could be the answer to her lack of self-worth.
Elizabeth is the Matrix, the Other is Sue.
They are one person.
This is a visceral birth, with close-ups of blood, injections, the splitting of the spine to the gush of another pushing outwards from Elizabeth’s lifeless body.
To the high impact beauty of the Other, Sue.
It’s all pink shiny leotards and perfect bodies – Sue becomes the fresh new face of fitness. She’s new and she’s young and she’s perfect.
It takes 7 days for Sue to rule the world. And as human nature dictates, Sue wants more.
The concepts of the film are portrayed with clever devices, aging is shown with a static view of Sparkles Hollywood Star cracking in the pavement over time. Of people walking across the star, admiring the star, to then show snow and rain and dirt and feet and food being spilled across her star. Like time has forgotten her face. To the giant image of Elizabeth in her apartment with the fractured glass around her eye – a loss of perspective, her self-hatred pinned up on the wall.
It’s an interesting title, The Substance, the focus on the outer beauty and social comment about aging, about what’s supposed to go where, replacing the true substance of a person with a chemical that births a younger, fresher you. Makes me wonder about Picasso’s cubism and his deconstruction of perspective.
Coralie Fargeat takes apart the idea of beauty and creates a satire with Elizabeth Sparkle using the mantra, ‘Take care of yourself,’ that Sue imitates with a wink because what is taking care of yourself when the expectation is to have medical procedures to try to stay young forever?
Fargeat comments, ‘This movie is going to be bloody gory. And it’s going to be bloody funny at the same time. Because I don’t know any stronger weapon than satire to show the world the absurdity of its own rules. And most importantly: I believe it’s going to be bloody timely. This is what this movie is about in the end. A liberation. An empowerment.’
Throughout the film, there’s an evolution of the grotesque as the weight of society’s expectation is perverted into an embrace of the gross with too much enthusiasm for my taste, to turn a fascinating film with a difference into something so awful it’s laughable.
This is a unique, determined and grotesque film.
This is body horror people. Prepare yourself.