Is there anyone here who would like to look younger? Then hurry to the cinema and see “The Substance,” a mesmerising mindbender starring Demi Moore in her finest performance as Elisabeth Sparkle, an Oscar-winning star turned TV fitness diva who is about to be fired by sexist network executive Harvey (Dennis Quaid) for committing the cardinal sin of — watch out, aging.

Moore, of course, looks stunning at 61. But Hollywood has a way of banishing women to oblivion at the first sign of a wrinkle. No one knows this better than Elisabeth (or Demi). Elisabeth nearly crashes her car when she sees a highway billboard with her face ripped off. She is rushed to the hospital and learns of an experimental “substance” that could solve all her problems.

Too good to be true? It’s not always. But here, writer-director Coralie Fargeat, who put the male gaze in the spotlight in 2018’s Revenge, takes aim at the impossible standards of sexuality set by toxic male bosses who subordinate their jobs to their twisted erotic fantasies.

What a world, right? And Fargeat is mad as hell about it. And more importantly, she isn’t afraid to let her anger out. The Substance is blunt and stark about beauty ideals that are unattainable for mere mortals and the “body horror” that is promoted in the name of achieving those ideals.

You might want to cover your eyes when the substance splits open Elisabeth’s back and releases a younger version of herself named Sue. The clone, who bears only a slight resemblance to Elisabeth, calls herself Sue. She is wonderfully played by Margaret Qualley, the real-life daughter of model/actress Andie MacDowell, in a meta performance of startling genius.

There’s a catch, and it’s a killer. Sue can only be on her feet for a week at a time, forcing Elisabeth to keep a low profile until Sue is ready to resurface, and vice versa. It’s not long before Demi and her doppelgänger are at each other’s throats.

Complications arise when Sue is hired by Elisabeth’s old boss (Quaid is hilarious as Harvey) to star in a new fitness show called “Pump It Up.” Tensions reach a fever pitch when Elisabeth sees Sue’s face on billboards that she once appeared on.

The Substance is a grim modern fable that begins by accusing men of reducing women to sex objects and then goes deeper. Fargeat reserves his anger especially for women who conspire to their own degradation, trading their soul in the blink of an eye for a few more shining hours as a goddess.

For all its shocking veers into R-rated bloodshed, The Substance is always a gripping parody of teenage obsession. Already a winner of the screenplay award at Cannes and a coveted Audience Award at the Toronto Film Festival, The Substance could well secure an Oscar for its excessive fun with unbridled vanity.

Kudos to Moore, who brilliantly handles the role of a lifetime – her final showdown with Qualley is a bloody wonder with special effects that deserve an award of their own.

Yet in a quieter moment, Moore shows acting chops we’ve never seen from her. She’s particularly blunt and captivating in a scene where Elisabeth prepares for a date and her face in the mirror reflects every emotion from self-love to self-loathing. In a remarkable tour de force, Moore transcends vanity and finds the broken heart of a character who literally splits herself in half to maintain the illusion of timeless appeal.

This is what he says about “The Substance” – you have never seen anything like it in your life.