The Substance (2024) Review

In the opening few moments of The Substance, we’re given a potted history of the Hollywood Walk of Fame star for one Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) from shiny and new through to weathered, cracked and having fast food dropped on to it. Although this is not quite the precise metaphor for Elisabeth’s career, her star is very much about to fall as she is unceremoniously dumped from her popular exercise show on her fiftieth birthday, no less.

Network exec Harvey (Dennis Quaid) breaks the news – in between close-ups of him troughing handfuls of glistening seafood – to Elisabeth with the cheerful “Well, what are you gonna do?” attitude of so many dreadful men out there. He goes on to announce that the audience is looking for someone more lithe and far younger, despite the various traffic stopping billboards of his current superstar which pepper the city.

A livid Elisabeth hotfoots it from the restaurant, straight to her car and then straight into an accident. Bruised but unbowed, she leaves hospital with a resolve to take back what was hers and a USB stick advertising the titular product. It’s not long before Elisabeth is picking up a box of the stuff and is ready to embrace a “more beautiful” and “more perfect” version of herself. Enter Sue (Margaret Qualley) who is ready to be the new Elisabeth, even though she’s also the old Elisabeth because, as the instructions for The Substances are at pains to state, “REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE ONE” and misuse of the treatment is not recommended…

Coralie Fargeat’s debut Revenge took the template of the rape/retribution thriller and elevated it to breathtaking, excessive heights. Her second feature takes aim at the unrealistic beauty standards society – more specifically, men in positions of power – continues to set for women, while also pointing up the sell-by date celebrity women are advised to adhere to, a date which, again, does not appear to be applied to the celebrity men out there.

To some, this may appear to be too obvious a target for satire and those who crave subtlety will more than likely be utterly disgusted by what goes on here but Fargeat is able to deliver a howl of rage like few others, hitting the viewer in the face with the dreadful reality of women being pushed into believing they can attain and maintain ever more impossible visions of gorgeousness via a sly script, two stunning performances from Moore and Qualley plus a whole, gloopy load of vomit-inducing body horror.

The effects of The Substance are demonstrated early on, when it’s injected into an egg and the yolk splits to form a new, second yolk. Interesting, strange, but hardly super gory. Now translate that into it being injected into a human and picture an auditorium of folks wondering how much longer it will be before they have to look away. The transformations are nothing less than a work of art, accompanied by some of the most horrendous sound design imaginable. Chapeau to supervisor Jean Miel and his team for delivering a practical effects showcase which made my jaw drop and gorge rise.

For anyone who’s noticed the runtime of this elsewhere and thought it might be a misprint, no, it does clock in at two hours and twenty minutes but the proceedings are well paced throughout, setting the scene and laying the ground rules in act one, following the adventures (and misadventures) of Sue and Elisabeth in act two and then swerving into a final act which is, quite frankly, monumentally insane. The rulebook of The Substance is figuratively and literally ignored, leading to a sequence of events which surely couldn’t get any more batshit up until the point at which they get more batshit.

Given the way in which both Moore and Qualley are lovingly filmed, there’s always going to be a worry about how even something such as this, which parodies the male gaze, could cross over into being as misogynistic as the attitudes it purports to condemn. Certainly, the close-up camera tracking of Sue and her troupe as they gyrate to their latest dance routine in prude-baiting outfits plays on the erotic but Fargeat knows exactly what she’s doing, inviting the watcher to participate in exactly the sort of objectification which is the central critique of the story.

In a piece which contains so much standout grue, the work of the cast still shines through. Demi Moore has constantly brought her A-game to everything she’s appeared in and I never really understood the odd glee which certain sections of the media took in projects of hers which ultimately failed. She’s one of the only reasons to watch 1982’s Parasite, that’s for sure. Here, she reminds us of exactly why she was once the highest paid actress in the world, giving an utterly fearless performance which taps into her own career ups and downs and scorching the screen with raw emotion.

As the other side of the coin, Qualley initially seems to a slightly pale imitation of her formidable older self but this is more sleight of hand from the plot, which steadily reveals the Sue side to be as driven and hungry for justification as Elisabeth, only with youth and newfound fame on her side plus the lure of endless Tinsel Town partying. Predictably, it all comes crashing down but unpredictably, it’s the love/hate relationship between Elisabeth and Sue which is a particular delight, as both parties find new ways to irritate the other. Quaid, in a smaller but no less vivid role, relishes every line as a faux effusive but unrelentingly mediocre studio honcho protected by the system as long as he can find the next big thing to plaster across the channel.

The broad strokes in which Hollywood is painted may give the feeling that we’ve all been here before but trust me, we haven’t. Benjamin Kracun’s vibrant cinematography captures the surface sheen of Los Angeles perfectly and the aesthetic jars beautifully with the spilled blood and guts on display. High spec, cutting edge apartments are redecorated with fluids of all types. Even the grimy back streets conceal shiny rooms for those in the know.

The Substance, while making serious points about how women in the public eye are built up and torn down on a depressingly regular basis, revels in its ridiculousness and the final sequence cranks up the fantasy dial to eleven as our star heads to present a prestigious New Year’s Eve programme and makes an entrance which is tragic, darkly hilarious and astonishingly gross, culminating in a parting shot which brings us full circle and finally allowing a moment to take in the assault to the senses.

To call The Substance bold is akin to saying Beethoven could write a decent tune. It refuses to back down from its confrontational stance and rarely lets up in its skewering of popular culture. Yes, the idea of a workout show being the biggest thing on television may be an odd one but you never know what will capture the public’s imagination next and it’s merely the platform upon which to construct the many layers of a tale that, in no uncertain terms, points out how infuriating and ultimately self-destructive it is to be a woman in a world run by men. This will wind up so many people. Good. I happened to love it. One of my films of the year? Without a doubt.

Movie Rating:

The Substance trailer