I can’t say I’m a huge fan of body horror, but I really loved this brash, bold and obscene fable that feels like a work of singular vision despite easily spotted influences.
Though I was dying to see this movie ever since first reviews started popping up, the body horror aspect had me worried: I can be squeamish when it comes to mutilation and extreme distortions of the flesh. I breathed a sigh of relief as soon as the film started and I got a taste of its hyper-stylised, darkly satirical tone with a generous splash of neon 80s aesthetic. However bloody and gruesome it was going to get, the heightened reality and lack of gritty realism was something like a protective shield for me. Which doesn’t mean that I didn’t squirm and wince in my seat all the way to the movie’s bonkers finale.
The premise for The Substance reads like something out of a grisly fairytale, or an episode of Black Mirror. Demi Moore is Elisabeth Sparkle, an actress whose career, just like her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, has seen better days. On the day she turns fifty, she loses her job as a presenter of a TV fitness class when a loathsome executive named Harvey (Dennis Quaid in garish suits and orange make-up, cartoonishly over-the-top and loving it) decides to ditch her for someone new and young.
Elisabeth is inconsolable, but then she is alerted to a new procedure known as the Substance, which can create a younger, better version of herself, perfect for the youth-obsessed entertainment industry. The Substance does come with a very specific set of rules. Elisabeth must switch with her younger, perkier self, Sue (Margaret Qualley) every seven days without exception, with the inactive version unconscious and getting fed through a tube. Should they break the rules, bad and irreversible things will happen.
It’s fair to question what exactly is Elisabeth getting from this experience when she and Sue do not share the same consciousness and have separate memories post-activation. The dispassionate voice on the Substance helpline reminds Elisabeth that she and Sue are one, but it’s a hard concept to swallow when memories are such a foundational part of our identity. It’s clear however that Elisabeth would rather have this bizarre half-existence, where at least some part of her is out there receiving the fame and adulation she’s addicted to. With her career over, there doesn’t appear to be anything else in her life, no friends or family or other interests. When it’s her turn to be out and about, Elisabeth spends days listless in front of TV, indulging in greasy takeaways and obsessing over the giant billboard of Sue, who of course has taken over her old job.
The fact that Sue instantly separates herself from Elisabeth by taking on a new name is telling. With her career taking off, it’s not long before Sue can’t be bothered to stick to the instructions and steals the very life essence from Elisabeth. From then on, the movie begins spiralling into the hair-raising extremes of body horror before culminating in a finale so outrageous and grotesque, it’s as if someone watched the most deranged and blood-soaked parts of The Shining and The Thing and decided that they were both way too understated.
I could think of many other obvious comparisons while watching the movie: Death Becomes Her, The Picture of Dorian Gray, the granddaddy of body horror David Cronenberg. Coralie Fargeat’s exhilarating film however is its own unique creature. It’s visceral, deliriously fun and unhinged, full of extreme close-ups and some of the most sickening, squelchiest sound effects I’ve heard in a movie. I also don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that made beautiful food feel so disgusting. The propulsive, synth-heavy score and eye-catching colours feed into the movie’s energy and help the somewhat indulgent runtime whizz past.
The Substance has no time for subtlety and doesn’t say anything new about the society’s obsession with youth and unrealistic beauty standards, but Demi Moore is very effective playing a woman who has internalised this messaging to her peril. Her best and most heart-breaking scene is a grounded one, where Elisabeth is putting on final touches for a date. She looks as glamorous as can be, but all she can see is flaws, and ends up so crushed by her own insecurities that she cannot bring herself to leave the apartment. In an extreme and excessive film, this relatively simple scene can’t help but touch a nerve of every woman who’s ever felt inadequate in front of a mirror.
P.S. It may sound silly, but the scene that sealed the movie’s unreal-ness for me was Sue carrying out the best DIY renovation job ever, flawlessly installing a new secret door in the bathroom so that she can conceal Elisabeth’s unconscious body, all by herself apparently. I would far sooner believe in a future drug that splits your back along the spine and births your perfect double.
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