The Substance Review: Instant Induction Into the Body Horror Pantheon
Ken Jones, OnScreen Blog Chief Film Critic
Hollywood has a well-documented history of looking for the younger model for women in the entertainment business. Countless actresses have talked about how roles dried up when they got on the wrong side of 40 or wherever the line of demarcation is. Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance uses body horror to critique these unreasonable cultural and self-imposed standards.
Demi Moore’s Elisabeth Sparkle is a former star actress who has transitioned into headlining an aerobics fitness show. On turning 50, she is unceremoniously fired by boorish television exec Harvey (Dennis Quaid). Elisabeth stumbles upon a black-market drug called “The Substance” that creates a younger, better version of the person who takes it.
There are a few rules around the serum, including that the two versions of the person are still one person and that they must switch off and on every seven days. Elisabeth’s younger version, Sue (Margaret Qualley), starts living an increasingly lavish lifestyle for her seven days, becoming enticed by the fame and recognition she is receiving. Not wanting to let go of it, she begins to break the rules, trying to stay out and about for over seven days, leading to increasingly devastating effects on Elisabeth.
To be blunt, this is not a film for the squeamish in any way. There is a Cronenberg-level of body horror on display. After Elisabeth takes the first injection of The Substance, Sue is essentially replicated inside Elisabeth’s body and then birthed out of her back, with her skin splitting open along her spine. She inserts a needle into Elisabeth’s spinal cord area repeatedly to give herself a daily “Stabilizer” injection. If she fails to take the daily injection, she begins to deteriorate, demonstrated by a bloody nose or part of her body breaking down.
When Sue starts abusing the seven-day rule, Elisabeth's aging and deformity are drastically aggravated. She almost immediately begins to resent Sue’s lifestyle and increasingly leads a more isolated life, watching TV infomercials and binge-eating. As she starts to wonder if she should terminate The Substance because of how it is transforming her, she cannot bring herself to pull the plug on it because she cannot stand what she sees in the mirror. After riding the fame tiger for so long, seeing who she is, and realizing what she can’t get back, she is too afraid to get off.
There’s a heartbreaking subplot where Elisabeth has a chance encounter early on with a former high school classmate, who claims he always knew she’d make it and always had a crush on her. He gives her his number if she wants to get a drink sometime. The man is dorky and not at all Elisabeth’s type, and she looks down at him.
As she begins to experience changes, she finds his number again, and for a moment, it appears that she may be able to have a way out if she could see herself through his eyes instead of the way Hollywood sees her. Ultimately, it leads to a bathroom scene that nearly rivals the answering machine scene in Swingers.
The film’s end features a truly grotesque display that is absolutely gonzo and will evoke extremely disparate reactions from one viewer to the next. It is a real statement on the desperate desire to keep hold of the spotlight even when you have transformed yourself beyond recognition. After all of the movies I have seen, it takes a lot to shock me, and the ending of this movie managed to shock me; even if I wasn’t completely on board with the ending, that counts for something.
The Substance immediately made me think of famous celebrities, actresses, and/or musicians who have done so much surgical enhancement or augmentation over the years in the name of beauty and the desperate attempt to remain culturally relevant by trying to keep themselves looking perpetually young.
Some keep doing this until they have changed their appearance almost beyond recognition and look nothing like they used to look when they were younger. All in the name of beauty and relevance. In an entertainment industry that is so heavily focused on looks, it’s practically a rigged system.
Fame is a hell of a drug.
Demi Moore delivers one of the best performances of her career in this film. It’s another impressive performance by Margaret Qualley, who quickly made a name for herself as a rising actress. It may be cliché to say that actresses give “brave” performances when they get naked or ugly themselves up with makeup and prosthetics, but the sheer amount of nudity and body disfiguration they both subject themselves to for this film is nothing short of brave. Their roles require a high level of vulnerability and self-confidence because they are opening themselves up for critique and using their bodies in their roles to critique the industry.
Their characters are a stark contrast to Dennis Quaid’s producer. His character’s name being Harvey is surely meant to evoke Harvey Weinstein. While Elisabeth is so concerned about her appearance that she feels the need to create a younger version of herself in Sue, Quaid’s Harvey is completely uninterested in how he is perceived. In an early scene, he enters the men’s bathroom and stands at a urinal while yelling on his cell phone. At dinner, he makes a slothful mess of himself by downing a massive amount of shrimp. He is loud, and his suits are loud.
When the credits started rolling for The Substance, I asked myself, “What the hell did I just watch?” What I saw was an unflinching, unapologetic, satirical film that highlights what women in Hollywood subject themselves to for fame and fortune. It holds a funhouse mirror up to the audience. It challenges the viewer to keep watching because of their, at best, passive complicity in the beauty standards women are subjected to in Hollywood and the world in general. It is nothing short of a provocation.
The Substance belongs in the body horror pantheon.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars