The Substance

A Woman Of...

The Substance
Directed by Coralie Fargeat
UK/France 2024
MUBI
UK cinema release print

Warning: Yeah, it’s almost impossible to talk about this one without some significant spoilerage so... I’m not even going to try.

The Substance is the second feature length film written and directed by Coralie Fargeat, following on from her tremendous first feature, Revenge (reviewed by me here). Now, if it comes down to it, I’d have to say I preferred her first movie to this one but, there’s no doubt that this is an outstanding piece.

Put it this way, there’s body horror cinema done right, such as when written and directed by the Cronenbergs (David and his son Brandon) and there’s body horror which, just seems a bit tame and unrelentingly pretentious... such as those directed by people like Brian Yuzna or Clark Baker. So I can’t be down on The Substance because this one definitely falls into the former camp and I certainly had a good time with it. Also, it seems like a lot of the special effects are practically done so... yeah, can’t complain, for sure.

The film follows Demi Moore in a truly outstanding performance as main protagonist(s) Elisabeth Sparkle, a former Hollywood oscar winner and fitness queen of TV ratings who is fired by her boss, played by Dennis Quaid, for being ‘past it’. However, after she survives a gnarly car accident, she is given a heads up and enters into the world of The Substance. This... well... substance, basically births a younger version of the person out of the spinal column of the first... in this case called Sue and played with equal relish by Margaret Qualley. Once the thing is birthed, she has to look after the comatose, older one by feeding her certain nutrients for seven days and then switching back to the old ‘matrix’ version for seven days, who will be doing the same for the new gal in town. Both are the same person and seem to share the same memories but.... both have different perspectives on their respective life, obviously. 

Anyway, Sue gets Elisabeth’s old TV job and takes the ratings higher than they’ve ever gone (going home to look after her ‘sick mother’ every other week is the excuse she uses for her use and eventual abuse of the titular concoction) and, as the two continue their stuttered co-existence... jealousy and rejection of each other’s lifestyle choices turn them into enemies. But, as they both find to their detriment, there are consequences for breaking the rules of use of The Substance.

Okay, that’s the set up in a nutshell and, I have to say, for the first three quarters of the movie I was loving it. It starts off with a demo of the substance on an egg yolk which then sets up the next shot which ends up bookending, somewhat, the intervening movie. And it’s a wonderful opening. A close up shot of the construction of Elisabeth Sparkle’s Hollywood Walk Of Fame Star followed by how it gets cracked and aged over the years... which is the first of, a fair few quite blatant metaphors the film uses to talk about the central issue... why are people, especially the female of the species, so enchanted with youth and so afraid of ageing?

Okay, now before I go any further, I just want to remind you that I thought the film was great... and it’s certainly one I will be buying when it gets a Blu Ray release, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Now, there’s been a lot of talk that the film is a remake of various films over the years. Sure, it certainly leans into various literary concepts and their collective cinematic legacy over the years but, nope, this is clearly it’s own film in that, if anything, it’s a mish mash of various ideas. Ideas such as The Picture Of Dorian Gray... not to mention various films where antagonists have deliberately stolen the life force of others to keep themselves going such as The Night Strangler (reviewed here)... I might even mention the body swap genre to a degree and it certainly has stylistic surface borrowings from things such as The Elephant Man and, I dunno if this was a deliberate thing or not but, certain things which start to happen in the final act reminded me just a little of the ending of the movie adaptation of Michael Moorcock’s first Jerry Cornelius novel, The Final Programme (reviewed here). So to blatantly call it an unofficial remake of something else is to do the director and her art an injustice, I think.

My only problems stem from the final half an hour or so of the film. Some of them are credibility things which, bearing in mind the fantasy nature of the film, seem a little puzzling within the built world of the film... such as a certain character being let back stage for her all important New Year’s Eve live broadcast when, in real life, she would have been kicked off the lot. Also, since when did they have topless dancers on prime time New Years shows in the US? Is that a thing now? But my main issue with the movie is that I thought the denouement of the story, no matter how well done... and it is stylishly rendered, for sure... seemed a little unsatisfying. I was waiting for Demi Moore’s version of the character to start doing something which was being done to her by her alter ego at some point but, alas, the narrative didn’t touch that idea, which is kind of a shame.

However, it really doesn’t matter because, even in the final segment of the film, it had me smiling. There are a fair few mirror scenes in this movie, since it’s basically dealing with the idea of female beauty and there’s one near the end which is scored by a piece of Bernard Herrmann’s music from Vertigo (one of my favourite films) and, if you remember the scene it was originally written for, well... it’s a wonderful musical joke that really perked me up in my seat.

Other than that, I think the other thing I wanted to say was, I thought Fargeat’s Revenge was a really solid, feminist, girl power movie so I am surprised to be reporting back that, this film seems to be as much about the ‘male gaze’ as it is about the improbable standards of beauty that self-same gaze spawns as a shared expectation of society. Which astonished me but, yeah, this is full of lingering close ups on the female body... in various fitness costumes that don’t leave much to the imagination and certainly in the lengthy, numerous sequences of the two lead actresses being completely naked. So... yeah, not so much disappointed by Fargeat’s seeming slant to this (I may have misunderstood something, I reckon) as much as finding myself being caught unawares, so to speak.

But, all that aside, I have to say I still really liked The Substance, even though it has lots of scenes which would have been completely cut out by the BFFC even twenty years ago (which is always puzzling to me but I’m glad they didn’t mutilate this one and said institution should be put down like a rabid animal anyway). This is a nicely put together, charming variant on the body horror narrative and fans of that sub-genre should embrace the film with open arms and legs. Certainly it’s a good example of modern cinematic spectacle, for sure... it’s just annoying that the striking score by Raffertie is not available on a proper CD... I would have liked to have given that one a listen.