One of the perks of covering film festivals is you get to watch films without knowing anything about them. In the age of months- if not year-long film marketing, the element of surprise has become something of a rarity. I’m bringing this up because I will probably always remember the experience of watching French writer/director Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance today. The pure, unforgettable shock of it. In fact, my advice to any fan of horror is to stop reading now, avoid all reviews and promotional materials relating to this film (good luck!) and just check it out on opening night if you can. It’s absolutely glorious and the closest thing to a masterpiece I’ve seen at #Cannes77 so far.
Premiering in competition (whoever made that call on the Cannes selection committee deserves a raise), The Substance tells the story of Elisabeth (Demi Moore), a beloved movie star who has turned to hosting workout programs and is now considered too old even for that. The network executive (Dennis Quaid) tells it to her face that his job is to give the people what they want, and what they want is someone hotter and younger. On the day she’s fired, Elisabeth has a traffic accident and while she’s at the hospital, a medic gives her information about something called The Substance. (Heavy spoilers ahead) We learn that The Substance is basically a biochemical program that allows the participant to grow an improved (meaning younger and more attractive) copy of themselves using their own biomaterial. This “other self” needs a daily injection of the original self’s spinal fluid to stay stabilized, so when one is active, the other should remain dormant, and they must switch places every seven days. When Elisabeth’s other self Sue (Margaret Qualley) becomes an overnight pop sensation, she grows ever more reluctant to switch back to her actual self.
I’m not entirely sure how the consciousness of the other self works – sometimes Elisabeth and Sue seem to have shared memory but mostly it appears that one does not know what the other does during their time of dormancy – otherwise the ground rules are easy enough to follow. And you understand the appeal right away: Who doesn’t wish to live as a more desirable version of themselves? While Elisabeth must cope with losing the love and spotlight she once received as a movie star, she gets to experience all that again as Sue. The downside is of course the impermanence of the switch. For every week lived inside the firm, unlined body of a young woman, seven days must be spent inside the droopy old one. Have things actually always been this droopy? Or is it just the comparison that makes Elisabeth feel uglier every time she awakes?
Fargeat’s screenplay cleverly uses horror to comment on the obsession with youth borne of toxic standards of beauty and widespread ageism, particularly against women. There’s a scene where Elisabeth is getting ready for a date. Just when she’s about to leave, she sees billboards of Sue’s flawlessly tight skin and becomes so insecure she has to redo her makeup over and over again. And when she first realizes Sue is overstaying her time which leads to irreversible consequences on her own body, she can’t bring herself to end the program because how do you go back to being so old and ugly all the time? The relatable and terribly sad dilemma (especially when DEMI MOORE is considered the old and ugly one) obviously emboldens Sue, who continues to abuse the body she’s born out of despite all warning signs, culminating in a final act so extraordinarily bloody it has to be seen to be believed.
Although horror is primarily the metaphorical means to addressing deeper themes here, Fargeat goes all out on the horror part nonetheless. Her direction is incredibly stylized and assured. Scenes of the TV show look polished in an unrealistically squeaky, aggressively plastic way, while the deformed body in the wake of repeated rule breaks is sculpted and shot with an even more elaborate attention to detail. The creature design at the end is truly a revolting feat of imagination that contrasts powerfully with all the fake perfection around it. Fargeat also shows superb control of pace and momentum. Even at 140 minutes, The Substance flies by without hiccups as things keep escalating until the insane finale. Reminiscent of Carrie and Requiem for a Dream, the New Year’s Eve-set climax stuns with its brute visual force and unsettles for what it says about our obsession with and addicion to beauty. Indeed, the film reminds me more than once of Aronofsky’s generation-defining classic, not least because of its blend of horror, drama and dark, dark satire.
Moore gives us her Ellen Burstyn with a tremendous, shockingly vanity-free performance. There’s a lot of prosthetics involved, sure, but what really stands out is her look of crushing disappointment whenever she sees her body later in the film, or the glint of madness in her eyes when she takes the stage for the last time. Qualley is also marvelous as the villainous alter ego. Her expression when Sue realizes it’s all too late for her long-awaited Big Moment is the stuff nightmares are made of.
Relentless, thought-provoking and morbidly fun, The Substance is a new horror classic in my book. If Greta Gerwig’s jury doesn’t take itself too seriously, they’ll know to find a place for it on the winner’s list a week from now.