The Substance (2024)
Body horror directed by Coralie Fargeat, and starring Demi Moore as an acclaimed actress turned TV fitness presenter called Elisabeth Sparkle forced to confront the cruelty of how older women are sidelined and rendered irrelevant. Fired and demoralised, she is offered a trial of "The Substance", a mysterious and radical procedure that will give her a chance of rediscovering a younger, fresher self. You know how right from the start, as an egg yolk is injected with The Substance, and out from it pops a nicer, rounder, duplicate yolk. (This transparently breaks the laws of physics on conservation of matter, but I guess we can let that go). And so she finds herself in the near-deserted, grubby alleys of Los Angeles, picking up her orders from a deeply suspicious hidden drop-box area to begin her initiation into experimental medical treatments. Needless to say, things are going to go wrong.
Let's start off by saying this has a superb central performance by Moore, potentially her career best: bold, compelling and convincing. Margaret Qualley also effectively sells the younger version of her, and Dennis Quaid finishes up the main characters by hamming it up to 11 as a greasily repellent network executive. Those core performances are a major anchor for the rest of the film. The body horror is what you might expect from Cronenberg. It is glossy, highly stylised and beautifully shot - reminiscent perhaps of the Neon Demon (also shot by a European director), and elements of Kubrick, with a vivid colour scheme. There is also a sense of emptiness about the film, perhaps accentuating the faded glory and social isolation of Elisabeth Sparkle, and some evolcative design choices.
This is a horror and feels like it, perfectly capable of some wince-inducing unpleasantness and tension. Although it's not also without its humour, and sometimes I'm not sure it gets the balance quite right, especially nearer the end. It is also a scathing commentary on the industry - particularly the casual and endemic sexism (exemplified by Quaid's nakedly ogling executive and the identikit old white male network shareholders). It throws much of this in our face: many of the shots of the two leads are perfect versions of the leering, objectifying worst of TV, film and music videos. So we watch as the audience, uncomfortably complicit in exactly what the film is disapproving of. Elisabeth is everywhere confronted with her irrelevance and replacement by younger, hotter models. Alongside this a hint of Sunset Boulevard - the addiction of fame and adulation, and the desperate desire to still be on top. I wouldn't say this film's messaging is particularly deep and it's definitely not subtle, but it certainly works.
As with many highly stylised films, The Substance is probably a relatively difficult ask for many viewers. I would argue it is around 20-30 mins too long, and I feel it loses substantial grip towards the end: whilst the last act has taken cues from what comes before, it's also a major shift in tone. But you have to give credit to films that try to do something different and succeed - and despite its imperfections, it certainly does succeed.
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