A former exercise-show host signs up for an experimental drug to keep her stardom alive, only to get in a war with what it births in Coralie Fargeat’s second feature film.
Too often, online discourse surrounding contemporary horror has been synonymous with overbearing hyperbole and pushes to go into a given movie without knowing anything about its premise or execution; recent examples of the former are the marketing campaign surrounding Longlegs and the analog horror feature Skinamarink, while instances of the latter come through critic quotes surrounding the thriller Strange Darling and Zach Cregger’s cult classic Barbarian. In the case of Coralie Fargeat’s new film The Substance, the hype is entirely justified because her takedown of irrational beauty standards in the entertainment industry amounts to a creative, twisted, thoughtful and terrifying horror satire that establishes Fargeat as an auteur to watch.
The Substance follows Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), an aging actress making a living as the long time host of a daytime exercise program until her 50th birthday rolls around, upon which she is unceremoniously let go by her slob chauvinist producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid), citing that the board of directors are ready for new blood. Things go from bad to worse when she gets in a car accident mere minutes later, but thankfully doesn’t suffer severe injury. One of her nurses considers her a ‘prime candidate’ for an experimental drug on the black market that promises to create a younger, more beautiful version of its user.
Desperate to hold onto her fame, Elisabeth signs up for the drug’s trials and collects all the necessary materials from a seedy storage unit before abiding by their strict, specific instructions and using them to birth a younger clone of herself named Sue (Margaret Qualley). Sue auditions for Elisabeth’s old show, gets the part on practically the same day, and all is well. At least, until the side effects kick in and the titular substance is inevitably misused, creating frightening bodily effects and driving a rift between both users that threatens their existence.
The subject of Hollywood’s beauty standards has been tackled many times through cinema in the past, but where The Substance adds something new to the table is through conveying the psychological effects of ageism and sexism on its protagonist. Elisabeth is written as a tragic figure bursting internally with a self-hatred palpable enough on-screen to conjure sympathy for the fading star, like a dialogue-free scene where she prepares for a night out with a long-lost friend only to take off her makeup and re-do it with a new color, just to take it off again after noticing something else that triggers her insecurity about her age.
The writing also does a stellar job of keeping the instructions Elisabeth and Sue must abide by while using the substance simple and streamlined for casual audiences while also calling attention to how contemporary weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic need to be used exactly as described or risk the dangerous effects of misuse. This is also expressed through Fargeat’s visceral eye as director when Elisabeth uses the substance for the first time through extreme closeups of needles going into her body, in addition to the time spent showing Sue stitching Elisabeth’s back up after stepping out of the slit formed upon her activation.
Fargeat even goes the extra mile to conjure sympathy for Elisabeth through striking shot composition, like the first time she collects her Substance care package while wearing a big, bright yellow coat that pops out among the blank white walls of the locker room; almost imploring through the screen that Elisabeth is beautiful when she doesn’t see it herself. The oversaturated color palette also adds a layer of horror to the world of The Substance, from the blaze orange walls of the bare production office hallways once decorated with ceiling-to-floor posters of Elisabeth to the extreme closeups of the pink workout clothes Sue dons that barely keep her private areas concealed.
The maximalist techniques even extend to The Substance’s sound design, especially in an early sequence where the effects of Harvey chewing up unappealing food can be heard in disgusting detail, while the impacts of the film’s graphic violence are just as cringe-inducing as the aforementioned part where Elisabeth tears at her face while removing her makeup. And it’s sections like those that place Demi Moore’s work here among the best performances of the year; her character moments as Elisabeth grow from uncertainty to a blinding rage when her self-hatred at getting old and resentment for Sue builds to a fury in the form of cursing bouts at the television. It’s also worth noting that Moore and the two supporting actors each contribute something different with their work in Fargeat’s latest; as Sue, Margaret Qualley communicates amazing emotion just with her eyes alone, and Dennis Quaid chews scenery to the point of camp as well as Harvey devours the shrimp on the table before him.
The Substance is without question an epic and stylish piece of satire and terror, but it is not a for everyone. The movie’s aesthetic goes to the extreme lengths in order to make its point about the conveyor belt female celebrities ride in the entertainment world from youth until they age out of popularity, the media’s oversexualization of young famous women and the mental toll it has on victims within the system through pitch-black humor that may not land with easily triggered audiences, and the narrative’s gonzo turn for the absurd in the third act is full of awards-worthy makeup effects and an abundance of gore, brutality and grotesqueries that will definitely turn off viewers who don’t have the stomach for those elements.
For those adventurous enough to sign up for The Substance, however, the off-putting materials as well as the extraordinary artistry on display amalgamate into something unforgettable, timely, thought-provoking and terrifying. The thematic statement of the third act is ultimately for moviegoers to discover and ruminate over well after expressing the rightly deserved shock, awe and hyperbolic interjection conjured by Coralie Fargeat’s second feature. There hasn’t been this much burning hatred for the pharmaceutical industry’s fragility and the pigs behind Hollywood’s unreasonable standards of beauty portrayed in a manner this radiant, darkly funny, hauntingly explosive, and genuinely affecting in quite some time. Make no mistake about it, The Substance is a cult classic for the ages, a body horror masterpiece, and one of the year’s best films.