The Substance

When The Thing was released in 1982, it was critically shredded for its grotesque imagery and was stranded in the box-office cold. I wonder how those same critics would react to The Substance, this year's Canne Film Festival sensation, and its grotesqueries? For this modern reviewer, writing about it and reading about it is a lot easier than watching it. Here's hoping I can describe it without the censors noticing.

Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), a former Hollywood superstar, is now the host of a Daytime Aerobics show. That is, until her boss, Harvey (Dennis Quaid), fires her on her fiftieth birthday in favor of somebody younger. Elisabeth gets into a nasty wreck on her way home; afterwards, a mysterious nurse (Robin Greer) gives her a flash drive promoting The Substance. It's a self-cloning serum which will produce a younger clone with one injection. She'll have to switch her consciousness between the current and new hers every week (no exceptions). With her one injection, Sue (Margaret Qualley) is born.

As Sue, Elisabeth gets her show and superstardom back. But all that fame exasperates Elisabeth's feelings of self-hatred. "There is only one you," the mysterious inventor (Yann Bean) of The Substance explains, and both must co-exist. Sue, however, is determined to remain young and beautiful by any means. And things get much weirder and grosser, if they haven't been already.

Coralie Fargeat's second feature film is determined to unsettle you from minute one. Her cinematographer, Benjamin Kracun, films quite a bit of the movie in extreme close-ups. I'm sure many an appetite will be lost when they see Harvey stuff his face with shrimp up-close. In fact, most of Harvey's scenes are shot up-close, which only amplifies his unpleasantness exponentially. That's not getting into the actual body horror, which is just as disturbing on a visual and auditory level as The Thing. Sue/Elisabeth's refusal to switch personas causes Sue to literally fall apart, Elisabeth to rapidly age to absurdity, and results in a second clone, Monstro Elisasue, a misshapen mutant reminiscent of The Thing's most gruesome forms. Everyone following me so far?

To say that this film is overwhelming is an understatement. It's still strangely compelling, all things considered. A lot of it is due to Moore's performance, which lets us pity Elisabeth in any state. Late in the film, Elisabeth prepares for a date with an old classmate, only for her to be stuck doing her makeup again & again, until she finally crumbles from body dysmorphia. Moore specially makes Elisabeth pitiable underneath the most extreme of the film's fantastic makeup work. The finale gives her a very strange moment of happiness. Qualley, meanwhile, is quite formidable whether she's playing Sue as Elisabeth's younger self or her own person. She is also pitiable once she falls apart at the end. 

If body horror isn't your thing, then I advise you not to take The Substance. Those who are will not be disappointed. This is everything from a treatise on body dysmorphia to the world's most surreal anti-drug PSA. The bloody finale, in which Monstro makes her public debut, is so ridiculously over-the-top that it's kind of funny. It may be brutal, it may be overwhelming, but it certainly isn't forgettable. This will make for a great midnight movie, whether in theatres or on MUBI, the streaming platform distributing it now. See it soon if you want to see what I mean.

Next up, something pleasant.