CNN
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Unless you’re already into genre films, you might at first glance dismiss “The Substance” as a film that’s too bloody in the body horror category.
But upon closer inspection, this second work by French screenwriter and director Coralie Fargeat (whose first feature, 2017’s Revenge, was critically acclaimed) turns out to be a confident and feminist fable that warns – quite vividly – of the pitfalls of blindly chasing youth.
The premise and plot of The Substance are simple: Celebrated actress and fitness guru Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore, in a spectacular performance) has a star on the Walk of Fame and a popular fitness show. As the film opens, she’s celebrating her 50th birthday and learns she’s being fired by her boss Harvey (Dennis Quaid), a mean and rude entertainment executive.
From there, an increasingly desperate Elisabeth learns of a mysterious drug on the black market known as “Substance” that promises to turn her into a younger and more vital version of herself – with certain caveats. Enter Sue, played by Margaret Qualley, a lustful and vivacious younger “self” who plans to restore Elisabeth to her former glory. The pair just have to follow a few simple but non-negotiable rules as dictated by the shady company supplying the substance. Of course, this balance doesn’t last very long.
Without giving too much away, what follows is a madcap look at Elizabeth’s desperate attempt to stay on top, coupled with Sue’s growing addiction to the admiration she receives from everyone around her, culminating in a final act that gives new meaning to the term “bloodbath.”
Fargeat recently told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that when she entered her 40s, she “started having these crazy, intense thoughts that my life was over, that no one would care about me anymore, that I had no value anymore. And I really realized how intense and powerful those thoughts were.”
The director went on to stress that she wanted to “express with the film the violence” that is expressed in the way society treats and portrays women, which led to the graphic depiction of the content. “I really wanted to push the boundaries and not be shy. That’s how we are made to internalize so much violence. That’s how disgusting it is, that’s how extreme it is.”
Moore echoed this sentiment when he said that “The Substance” not only exposes what society and the world do to aging women, but also what women and men do to themselves.
“There was a more extreme ideal of beauty back then and I personally had the experience of being advised in several films to lose weight before I even had children,” Moore recently recalled on the New York Times podcast “The Interview.”
“These were humiliating experiences, but the real violence was in what I did to myself, in the way I tortured myself, doing extremely crazy exercises, weighing and measuring my food, because I put all the values I possessed into my body and its appearance, giving more weight to the opinions of others than my own,” she added.
As Elisabeth and Sue search for balance – but find themselves in a crazy conflict towards the end of the film – Fargeat wanted the two characters to “really represent all the voices that we have inside of us that can be extremely violent and conflicted, whispering all the time, ‘You’re not good enough, you’re not beautiful enough, you’re not sexy enough,’ because that’s what we hear all day and see everywhere in society.”
Moore also commented on the film’s nudity scenes, which never feel unnecessary. “When I started doing this, I was really aware of how much vulnerability and openness was needed to tell the story,” she said. “And it was a very vulnerable experience and just required a lot of sensitivity and a lot of conversation about what we were trying to achieve.”
The substance’s clever shipping packaging – which includes a series of injections – reflects the quick-healing quality of current fads like Ozempic and evokes memories of the now-classic 1992 black comedy Death Becomes Her, starring Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn, which soon premiered as a Broadway musical.
“The Substance” may also remind you of some other well-known titles, but that doesn’t detract from the original: There are echoes of “All About Eve” and Oscar Wilde’s classic fairy tale “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” and for the gross-out factor, John Carpenter’s “The Thing” is also thrown in.
It’s a fairly self-contained film, and supporting actors Qualley – whose mother Andie MacDowell has often spoken about the pressures of growing older in Hollywood – and Quaid are excellent.
The Substance was highly praised when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, where it was nominated for the Palme d’Or and won the award for best screenplay. Earlier this month it won the Midnight Madness Audience Award at the Toronto International Film Fest.
“The Substance” is currently in theaters.
