An immensely, unstoppably, ecstatically demented fairy story about feminine self-hatred, Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance” will cease at nothing — and I imply nothing — to blow up the ruthless magnificence requirements that society has inflicted upon ladies for 1000’s of years, a burden this camp-adjacent on the spot traditional aspires to forged off with a few of the most spectacularly disgusting physique horror this facet of “The Fly” or the ultimate minutes of “Akira.”
If the “Revenge” director’s immaculately crafted debut tried to dismantle male toxicity with a shotgun blast sq. to the balls, Fargeat’s Cannes-approved follow-up turns that very same consideration inwards, permitting her to take goal at each the pointlessness she’s been conditioned to really feel as a forty-something girl, and in addition on the resentment she’s been conditioned to really feel in direction of her youthful self. Squelching with fury at how a lady’s “fuckability” is used as the last word measure of her price, the results of Fargeat’s mad experiment is equal elements “Freaky Friday,” “All About Eve,” and Andrzej Żuławski’s “Possession” — easy sufficient for a kid to know, however gross sufficient to make squeamish adults spew out their lunch. These with the abdomen to stay it out shall be rewarded with essentially the most sickly entertaining theatrical expertise of the 12 months, one carried by the sort of go-for-broke efficiency that Hollywood stars solely have a tendency to present after they attain a sure age and begin working out of choices.
If solely these stars have been all as fearless as Demi Moore, or as offended, or as keen to completely give up themselves into the very best position they’ve been supplied because the peak of their superstar. Her character in “The Substance” is known as Elisabeth Sparkle, and it’s protected to say that she’s misplaced a few of her shine.
An Oscar-winning actress who rebranded herself as a Jane Fonda-like health guru as she matured in direction of 50, Elisabeth is already on the point of obsolescence when this movie begins; Fargeat refuses to say something in phrases that she may specific together with her digicam as a substitute, and so all the pieces we have to learn about Elisabeth’s profession up to now is conveyed inside a time-lapse shot of her star on the Hollywood Stroll of Fame because it will get scuffed up — and worse — over time. Elisabeth’s self-image is protected by the unaging portrait of herself that hangs in her Los Angeles house, reverse floor-to-ceiling home windows that supply her a “Physique Double”-worthy view of town under, however her ego crumbles in a heartbeat after she overhears the community government who oversees her exercise present making some wildly sexist feedback about her bodily look.
Harvey is performed by a Tappy Tibbons-like Dennis Quaid, his cartoon chauvinism anticipating a film so aggressively in your face that you could nearly odor what its forged had for lunch. Living proof: The very subsequent scene finds Elisabeth getting sideswiped on the freeway after she’s distracted by the sight of somebody tearing down a billboard together with her face on it. Her time is over. Or possibly not — on the hospital the place Elisabeth is taken after the crash, a yassified male nurse with the complexion of an airbrushed highschool yearbook photograph slips her a USB drive containing a cryptic advert for one thing known as “The Substance.” The video leads her to an unstaffed facility that seems like a liminal area proper out of a Charlie Kaufman film, and to a lockbox that accommodates the primary of the weekly kits she’ll want for her remedy.
The directions are easy as they’re suspicious, however Elisabeth isn’t within the temper to play issues protected. A one-time injection of some Gatorade-yellow liquid begins the method, and it needs to be adopted by a routine of every day stabilizers so as to keep steadiness between the affected person and the full-sized “higher model” of themselves that violently hatches out of their again, forcing their backbone open till it resembles an enormous vagina. In Elisabeth’s case, the “different you” is a lifeless ringer for Margaret Qualley (her character higher understood as a bodily manifestation of Elisabeth’s idealized self-image than the literal embodiment of who she was), and the doppelgänger’s first order of enterprise is to stitch Elisabeth again up.
However the process is just not as cut-and-dried because it appears. “THERE IS ONLY ONE YOU” the directions insist: Elisabeth and “Sue” are a single consciousness shared between two our bodies, and that consciousness should alternate between them each seven days, with out fail, or… dangerous issues will occur. For sure, that’s a severely limiting schedule to impose upon one life, not to mention two, and it isn’t lengthy earlier than issues come up.
On the one hand, Sue is in no hurry to revert again to a physique twice her age, particularly after she aces a TV audition on the lookout for “the subsequent Elisabeth Sparkle” and turns into Harvey’s newest it lady. Alternatively, Elisabeth is hollowed out by her phantom expertise as a lithe and spotless younger sexpot, and finds herself feeling extra diminished than ever in the course of the lengthy days she spends as her postmenopausal self; the truth that Moore seems to be completely implausible for her age, and permits Benjamin Kračun’s digicam to survey her bare physique, solely deepens the pointless tragedy of Elisabeth’s self-worth.
And but, “The Substance” is slathered with a plastic and candied viscosity that calls relentless consideration to its surfaces, thus rendering any sort of asymmetrical blemish as a sin towards the prevailing aesthetic of its world. Right here, substance is fashion, and there isn’t a shot on this film that wasn’t acutely engineered to evoke a visceral response, as Fargeat’s high-impact compositions are edited along with a concussive rhythm that makes every of the movie’s ultraviolet units really feel like they belong to a fantasy and a nightmare (your entire story is contained inside a really small handful of areas, however organized with a dynamism that simply disguises that reality).
From the smoothness of Sue’s unmarked pores and skin to the cellulite on Elisabeth’s butt and the crinkled shrimp heads that come spitting out of Harvey’s mouth — and proper into the fish-eyed digicam lens — throughout a lunch assembly, Fargeat emphasizes just about each element with the identical violent depth, as if attempting to reclaim the Cinéma du look from the hyper-sexualized male gaze that made it well-known. The forcefulness of her visible design is matched by the unrelenting fervor of her sound design. Alka-Seltzers sink right into a glass of water like depth prices dropped by a submarine, which ought to make you very, very nervous concerning the symphony of nausea Fargeat’s crew of foley artists are able to cooking up for the later scenes when issues start to go awry. When the flesh begins to insurgent, and to rot, after which an entire lot worse.
By all of it, “The Substance” by no means loses its fairy story soul, particularly as its plot hinges on the truth that Sue will flip right into a pumpkin if she doesn’t give up her physique by midnight. This dilemma naturally presents itself throughout a intercourse scene, however Fargeat maintains her story’s focus by sidelining its male characters as a lot as attainable; the essence of the battle right here is strictly between Elisabeth and the crushing weight of her personal invalidation, and any subplots — romantic or in any other case — would solely threaten to steal consideration from that one-sided wrestle.
To that time, it’s a testomony to the bare despair of Moore’s efficiency that her strongest scene is perhaps the one during which Elisabeth bails on a date as a result of she will be able to’t make peace together with her face within the mirror, the actress self-loathingly smudging off her make-up with the identical primal horror that can later be delegated to prosthetics. Moore is completely in tune with the “Cinderella”-like witchiness that consumes Elisabeth as she involves resent Sue’s youthful narcissism, her spite made all of the extra heartbreaking as a result of it’s successfully focused at herself.
Not even the truth that Elisabeth actually turns into Sue each different week is sufficient to make her really feel as in the event that they’re two reflections of 1 spirit at totally different ages, every with their very own worth. As a substitute, she identifies Sue as “the one lovable a part of me,” to which Qualley’s unflinching efficiency — devilishly self-possessed, and in utter denial of its imminent decline in the way in which that solely youth could be — responds with a toothy smile, as if to say “you’re precisely proper.” If Moore is the extra thrilling standout, that’s partially as a result of Qualley has spent her whole profession swimming within the deep finish with administrators like Claire Denis and Yorgos Lanthimos. For her half, Moore has by no means actually taken a danger of this nature earlier than. Few fashionable actors of her pedigree ever have. And the locations that danger takes her within the film’s completely bonkers last act can have your jaw on the ground, if it’s even nonetheless connected to your physique.
“The Substance” is a surprisingly lengthy movie for its style, with a runtime approaching two-and-a-half hours, however Fargeat is aware of precisely what she’s doing. This isn’t a milquetoast empowerment drama, or a well mannered request for its viewers to contemplate working in direction of a society that doesn’t render ladies invisible as soon as they flip a sure age. This isn’t even a forceful reclamation venture within the spirit of Noémie Merlant’s “The Balconettes,” one other worthwhile addition to the rising canon of post-#MeToo films that discover ladies redefining their display photographs on their very own phrases.
No, “The Substance” is a continuous, go-until-you-gag epic that builds and builds and builds till it scars everybody within the viewers with a deep-seated physiological aversion to the concept that we are able to ever hope to flee from ourselves. Fargaet’s film escalates with the sort of ultra-confident audacity that leaves you laughing out loud at sights that will in any other case make you shriek as a substitute, and it merely refuses to finish till even Harvey himself is sickened by how society pressures ladies into shaping their our bodies. And so, like every fairy story price its unforgettably horrifying particular results, “The Substance” concludes with a transparent ethical that it makes you wish to imagine in: There’s extra magnificence in freedom than there’s freedom in magnificence. And it’s completely beautiful to look at Elisabeth Sparkles and Demi Moore assist one another escape into the sunshine of that reality.
Grade: A-
“The Substance” premiered in Competitors on the 2024 Cannes Movie Competition. MUBI will launch it in theaters later this 12 months.