What’s It About
Elisabeth Sparkle, renowned for an aerobics show, faces a devastating blow on her 50th birthday as her boss fires her. Amid her distress, a laboratory offers her a substance which promises to transform her into an enhanced version of herself.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
In this visually striking film, Demi Moore portrays Elisabeth Sparkle, a 50-year-old former Hollywood icon struggling with irrelevance. After seeing her billboard advertisement removed, Elisabeth crashes her car. She encounters a mysterious nurse who introduces her to “The Substance” – an experimental treatment promising youth and beauty through a series of injections. Desperate to reclaim her former glory, Elisabeth undergoes the procedure, which creates Sue (Margaret Qualley), a younger version of herself. The process has strict rules: the two entities must alternate control of their shared existence every seven days. This works out okay for Elisabeth at first, as Sue wins a lead on an aerobics TV show, and she impresses Sue’s skeptical producer, Harvey. Things start to go awry when Sue, seemingly developing a consciousness of her own, starts to break the seven-day rule. As Sue gets the better of their mutual existence, Elisabeth suffers a decline in both her mind and body, with grotesque results. Fargeat makes a brilliant comment throughout the movie about the treatment that society uses on aging women. But even in that, the visual language of the film pegs vibrant colors and bright lighting against Sue’s scenes, bathing Elisabeth’s segments in darkness and shadowy tones. Likewise, the makeup and effects team do remarkable work here through largely practical work, fashioning indelible body horror sequences right out of the pages of your most sadistic video store rentals, with homages aplenty to such luminaries as David Cronenberg and David Lynch. Notably, the casting is particularly poignant: Moore’s real-life career trajectory echoed Elisabeth’s story of rising to fame in the 1980s and peaking in the ’90s with films like “Ghost” and “A Few Good Men,” Moore brings something real to her playing a star opposite Hollywood’s harsh age-based discrimination. She delivers desperation in Elisabeth, along with her breakdown, with compelling depth. Qualley matches Moore in intensity as Sue, the allurement of youth and its eventual corruption so aptly played. He frames Sue purposefully through a satirical male gaze to outline how society sexualizes young women. Quaid provides as good support as Harvey. However, the character is supposed to be cartoonishly stereotypical and represents everything that is rotten in the garden of Hollywood. However, there is more this film says than about Hollywood. Universally themed with aging and gender inequality across the sexes, men age and become “distinguished,” but for women, that means devaluation and dismissal. One of the most powerful sequences shows Elisabeth spiraling into madness, constantly making up and removing makeup as she is not quite able to cope with the image of her aging self. The moment speaks loudly about beauty standards and social pressures fracturing self-images. Throughout Fargeat there were cinematographic means supporting these ideas. The most obvious example is the static overhead shot of Elisabeth’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star, its making and then desecration by a careless passerby-shown through time-lapse, standing as a metaphor for how fame is transient. As the story unfolds, this movie turns from social commentary to visceral body horror. Indeed, the practical effects of the film create some disturbing, memorable scenes that service the themes the story tries to get across rather than are merely put there for shock value. These scenes put across the weight both physical and mental, of impossible beauty standards set by society. “The Substance” will work both as a thought-provoking rumination on ageism and as a compelling horror film. It’s this dark-but-necessary critique of how society discards women as they get older, wrapped up in the grotesque spectacle genre fans expect. This blend of social commentary and body horror within the movie makes for a really singularly unique, haunting viewing experience that will stick well after the credits roll.
OUR RATING – A GENERATIONAL 7.5