Elizabeth Sparkle is a star, but for how long? On her 50th birthday, she is ousted from her successful aerobics show, so it can be led by a younger model of herself. She’ll either accept her fate or simply find a way to become the ingénue they are looking for via The Substance.
The Substance doesn’t pull any punches—literally or figuratively. It is a relentless storytelling that never lets up. There are moments to breathe, but they come few and far between in the two and half hours this film covers at breakneck speed. It would have been an excellent film with the loss of an hour.
If you want to bask in the world that French director Coralie Fargeat created, then you’ll be delighted with that length. But be warned that if you do stick around, almost every gore and gross trigger you might have is likely on the table. Again, sometimes literally. This warning is not meant to deter you but to prepare you for what’s best about the picture.
Its unforgiving expression is one of its strengths; the other is the forceful performance of Demi Moore. She uses every tool in her arsenal, and you see it tearing at her, and you’re grateful for every drop that she gives you. In a film that can be cruel and consistently graphic in its violence, we can always turn back to Moore to guide us and offer the audience an anchor to this world. You come to depend on her as you navigate this film. You yearn for her to return when she is not in a scene. This is not to say that Margaret Qually (Drive-Away Dolls) doesn’t hold her own in the flashy 80s pink-and-blue scenes; it’s just that her role is not the touchstone of the picture. Dennis Quaid (The Intruder) is over the top and camp, and it works.
The supporting turns are wild and disgusting. But this is Moore’s film. She does “beautiful” and “gross” with equal power (not that she had anything to prove). Her performance just adds to the evidence that women, specifically middle aged women and up, are the ones owning this genre.
As far as gross is concerned, buckle up! Yes, this is my second warning. Fargeat holds you with creative and stylistic body horror. But after watching several audience members leave after each newly introduced horror, it is something worth mentioning.
There was a certain pride in enduring while others bailed. Feeling rewarded each time someone left the cinema was some kind of cinematic metaphor for the pressures women experience over a lifetime when it comes to youth and beauty. Sticking it out or not was part of the journey. The Substance will be a favorite of the genre. A classic? Only time will tell.
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