On her 50th birthday after wrapping filming on her aerobics segment for the morning show, Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is called to a lunch with her boss, Harvey (Dennis Quaid), where he unceremoniously fires her.  The distraught actress drives home, getting into a car accident along the way. A little bruised, but miraculously unharmed, a young doctor (Robin Greer) at the hospital passes her a flash drive during discharge containing information about an experimental drug known only as “the substance” that allows users to unlock a new, youthful, vibrant version of themselves.  As with all things, there is a catch, and users of the substance must switch back to their regular body every seven days, but when Elisabeth – reborn as Sue (Margaret Qualley) – gets a taste of the wild and free life she so missed, she begins to try and find a way to live only as Sue and leave Elisabeth behind.  

Acquired out of Cannes by Mubi after winning the Prix du scénario for best screenplay, Coralie Fargeat’s written and directed The Substance, her sophomore feature, received a just-shy-of-2,000-screens theatrical release from the pro-exhibition streamer.  A parable about fame, though one seemingly penned by The Brothers Grimm more so than Aesop, the 141-minute film puts the body under the glare of a spotlight and in front of a peering lens so that it morphs what is marketed to be sleek and sexy into something far more grotesque.  Despite its runtime and the sometimes blunt way in which it handles its thesis, the film flies by due to its frantic, panicked heartbeat courtesy of Raffertie’s incredible and thundering score, sometimes even more abrasive than the imagery that it accompanies.  Ending with a strong third act that truly embraces the traditions of body horror, The Substance is a deadly serious satire about the dangers of fame and the carnivorous nature of show business.   

As the central figure of the film, Moore is unafraid in front of the camera to be seen naked under harsh lighting and cold tile where even the slightest wrinkle seems like a valley casting deep shadows and every slightly prominent varicose vein glows a brighter blue than Godzilla’s dorsal spines while charging his radioactive breath turning her, at least within the context of the film, something of a monster herself. As an actress in a part, she knows that across the run time of the film her body will be ripped, torn, and cast aside before being reassembled in the final act, but Moore never lets that knowledge reach Elisabeth before she experiences the terror first hand. Beautiful as she is, the film is very knowingly highlighting the natural signs of aging to such a degree that we are supposed to feel repulsed by it. It is successful insofar as when the body is viewed in such a scientific and matter-of-fact way, and with such intensity, the fact that we are muscle and mucus wrapped up in a fleshy suit, it is hard not to be repulsed by the images on screen. Fargeat is using these sequences to draw parallels between our physical being and that of meat, of food, something to be chewed up, and when all that is useful has been absorbed, finally discarded.  

In fact, the film’s opening shot is of an egg yolk that we see get injected with a needle and soon split off into a new yolk; an identical counterpart. Later, during her lunch with her boss – pointedly named Harvey, by the way – we see him stuff his face with shrimp, tearing off their heads and slurping out the meat before chewing loudly with his mouth open. If cinematographer Benjamin Kracun captured Elisabeth as something to be observed too closely, his lens purposefully captures Harvey as someone to be laughed at in an extreme close-up with almost a fish eye lens that warps his image. Harvey, however, does not feel shame for being photographed in such a mocking way whereas even Elisabeth when shot in even the most flattering of light always leaves us with a feeling of her own discomfort in her body, especially given her line of work.   

Ultimately let go from her job because, as her boss put it, once a woman hits 50 it no longer works, it is perfectly clear that the “it” in question is her sex appeal to the audience and to him. She is left at the table with the comical quantity of scraps and the shells of the shrimp he so greedily sucked down, herself discarded and left behind with the trash. The Substance, however, offers her a second chance at youth, beauty, and fame, but in order to claim it she must once again debase herself, crouching and crawling through a nondescript alley door to pick up her transfusion kit; a chore she must commit every two weeks if she is to sustain her addiction to the fame that will follow her second self. 

This redemption comes in the form of Sue, hatched from Elisabeth and leaving the woman with a split parallel to her spine and on the cold tile, like an abandoned cocoon or the remains of a crustacean’s molt. Sue, however, at least not yet, is not much of a threat but actually looks down on Elisabeth’s split-open body with a bit of pity, sowing the woman back together. The film continually reminds us that Sue and Elisabeth are not two, but one. It is a plot point that some who come to the film with an interrogative agenda may take issue with, but The Substance works best, oddly enough, on feeling. It is not that Fargeat breaks her own rules established on the page, but the rules are loosely written and therefore loosely adhered to and are able to be loosely applied. 

Opposite Moore, Qualley is giving an equally bold performance of a whole different flavor.  Having emerged as the younger, more vibrant Elisabeth, she quickly fills the void at the network and becomes a household name seemingly overnight.  If Kracun’s lens judged what it saw with Elisabeth, it straight up objectifies Qualley’s Sue, weaponizing its gaze and it becomes equally addicted to capturing her body.  In various states of undress – the sleek and revealing chic workout clothes, or animalistic-inspired nightwear, all great choices from costume designer Emmanuelle Youchnovski – Kracun can not get enough and makes sure that we cannot either, but like any addiction it soon grows old and revolting, requiring more and more, stopping at nothing.  The Substance is a strange film on a narrative level as it does not have a traditional antagonist, but Sue fills the role of one close enough as both the object of our desire and our destroyer.   

She starts by stealing a few extra hours before the switch so that she can sleep with Troy (Oscar Lesage), but in the morning when Elisabeth wakes up, she is horrified to see that one of her fingers has begun to decay.  Another addiction, this one bluntly personifies the destruction it wreaks on a person.  The next switch, Sue overstays even longer, leaving Elisabeth to wake up with a leg that is crusted and scabbed all over and riddled with arthritis.  What is most interesting about The Substance, especially when compared to how horror often treats aging, is that it does not view age as some kind of demon as many modern horror films have taken to doing.  It is refreshing that even though the film turns Elisabeth into a monster stylized with many of the dreaded hallmarks of age, it is not until she totally transforms that she finds peace in herself. 

Around the midway point, one of the more grounded but most haunting scenes takes place as Elisabeth prepares for a date with Craig (Joseph Balderrama), an old high school classmate.  Taking one last look in the mirror, she is unsatisfied and changes her makeup.  On her way out the door, in a reflection on the knob, her face is distorted, clownlike, while a billboard of the radiant Sue peers over her shoulder from the outside.  Back to the bathroom.  This visual motif itself is a distorted reflection of when a floor-to-ceiling portrait of Elisabeth was peering down from the wall of the flat at the new Sue; a ghost of Christmas Future haunting the memories of youth, though looking back with envy more than regret.  Back to the scene at hand, however, and we go back to the makeup.  Less bold, more natural.  Still wrong.  Again.  Agian.  Again.  Wrong every time, and then we cut to hours later, a not insignificant amount of missed texts later, and Elisabeth sitting alone, in the dark, on the floor of the bedroom.  It will not happen again.  Elisabeth will become Sue. 

The final act is where the film can be unfairly accused by a less engaged audience for going off the rails or praised by an eager audience for, well, going off the rails.  Sue, having drained the stabilizer fluid from Elisabeth dry, begins to decay resulting in some of the more visceral and gross moments of body horror; the pulling out of teeth and the bending back of fingernails.  Determined to fill her role in the New Year’s Eve show, she desperately uses the remaining dose of the initial substance in hopes that it will create a better version of herself.  A copy of a copy, though, loses something, and what emerges is a melded-together amalgamation of Elisabeth and Sue, finally one, but neither is whole.  Monstro Elisasue.  Grotesque, but pittied, the creature suit was sculpted by Richard Martin and definitely feels inspired by John Hurt’s styling in David Lynch’s The Elephant Man (1980).  As mentioned previously, too, this is the form in which Elisabeth finally feels the most beautiful, because she no longer cares what she looks like and has no one to answer to.  She is no longer dressing for Harvey, or to keep up with Sue, or to meet the expectations of the public.  She is finally free to do for herself.  Taking the stage at the NYE show, she is ridiculed and attacked by the screaming masses, spraying her blood and coating everyone in the room.  It is here that The Substance lets loose its pent-up and simmering anger at the Hollywood system, stardom, and the selling of sex and bodies. While in the context of the film it soaks those who are in charge of the system, as a larger metaphor it alleges that we in the audience are just as culpable for engaging in this barbaric trade union.  It can seem like a little bit of misplaced rage, but this is a film that hates not just a single aspect of the system, but the system as a whole, so in that sense, it is only right that it finds us culpable and the blood stains us too. 

The Substance, beyond its classification of body horror, is an abrasive film to watch, but one that does remain surprisingly accessible.  This can most likely be due to its similar structure to some classic horror stories – Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) all come quick to mind – but the film is also carefully assembled with a discerning and meticulous eye that is reminiscent of the worlds crafted by Stanley Kubrick; another artist obsessed with how things look when reflected in the lens.  It is wild that a film that has such contempt for the system has been embraced by it, at least within the specialty market, but if not for bold statements, what is the point even of art?  What is the point of filmmaking?