"Old age ain’t no place for sissies,” Bette Davis once famously quipped, and neither is “The Substance,” writer/director Coralie Fargeat’s outrageous, audacious, and ambitious twist on wanting “a younger, better self.” This bloody body horror satire is sure to have viewers gasping and laughing throughout, especially during its over-the-top finale.
From the opening scene of an egg being injected with a serum and replicating itself to a wordless montage depicting Hollywood starlet Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) losing her luster, “The Substance” is cleverly told. Fargeat shoots in overhead and in extreme closeup to maximize discomfort — even Elisabeth stabbing an olive in her fourth martini is startling — and when the filmmaker features a wide shot, it can be disorienting, disgusting, or both. This film is designed to make even jaded people squeamish, but it does so to make its points about how women in particular, and society in general, crave youth and beauty — and the lengths they will go to keep that.
When Elisabeth overhears her boss Harvey (Dennis Quaid) insisting on getting a younger, hotter model for her TV exercise segment, she starts to pay attention to the signals that she is being phased out. And while Fargeat is not very subtle showing Elisabeth literally being effaced from a billboard, illustrating this very point, the emotional toll is palpable. So, when a young man recommends Elisabeth try “the substance” — because it changed his life — she reluctantly pursues this anonymous, underground process that involves an injection that creates “a younger better self,” for alternate weeks. It comes with a simple but strict maintenance plan to follow, including food, and the rule that one can stop, permanently, at any time.
“The Substance” features one of its many jaw-dropping scenes when Elisabeth “activates” herself. Naked in a bathroom, she convulses, and in one of the film’s best shots, two pupils appear in her eye as her back splits open and she “gives birth” (there is really no better description for it) to Sue (Margaret Qualley), the younger, better version of herself. Sue admires her young naked body in the mirror and, after sewing up Elisabeth’s body — the sound design during her suturing is exceptional — goes off to take Elisabeth’s job.
A week later, Sue must switch places with Elisabeth. However, as Sue starts having fun as a successful and adored young woman, and the older Elisabeth basically stays in, overeats and watches TV, Sue wonders why she should be dormant for a week if Elisabeth is only going to sit around in a pool of self-pity and get fat? When Sue comes up with a plan to extend her time as a youth, it causes consequences. Suddenly, one of Elisabeth’s fingers wrinkles and ages because Sue cheated time. And the more Sue disrespects the week on/week off balance, the more Elisabeth will suffer varicose veins, thinning, graying hair, sagging breasts, and other indignities of aging. There is also a nasty infection that develops.
Fargeat seems to enjoy playing with this theme, an obvious gender-reverse homage to and riff on “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” It does not go unnoticed that Sue removes a large wall-size picture of a young Elisabeth hanging in her stylish apartment, or that a billboard featuring Sue hangs outside the floor to ceiling window of Elisabeth’s apartment.
It is easy to call “The Substance” superficial in its depiction of women’s quests for youth and beauty as well as men’s salivating responses to that. Fargeat showcases these two women in ways that flatter them, with her camera acting as a mirror reflecting their “false perfection” back at us. The film is magnifying the superficiality of our culture. Sue is shot with the gaze of a horny teenage guy; the camera fetishizes her curves, and she has a sexual come-hither look that melts every man she meets. (Only a woman director could get away with this.) As such, Harvey’s appreciation of Sue is creepy, especially when he leers at her exercising in a skimpy outfit. Even Elisabeth’s neighbor Oliver (Gore Abrams) is comical going gaga at meeting Sue and being awkward around her. Moreover, when Sue wants to go out on the town, she dresses in a skin-tight snakeskin outfit and puts on some obscene Louboutins. These are not “F**k me pumps” they are “F**k you pumps.
In contrast, the film is poignant when Elisabeth makes a date with someone from her past but loses her confidence, rearranging her appearance over and over again before seeing her reflection in a doorknob and giving up.
Such emotional moments counterbalance the film’s more surrealistic scenes. Sue has a nightmare that involves a chicken leg that kind of has to be seen to be believed, and the film does suggest addictive behavior and substance abuse in the sense that Elisabeth/Sue cannot stop their codependent dynamic. Even a wild sequence where Elisabeth eviscerates a turkey as Sue is seen on a talk show is simultaneously disturbing and amusing in how it depicts literal self-loathing.
As such, it is a shame that Fargeat goes too far in the final reel because the film is pretty fantastic up to its last, outrageous moment. A catfight between Elisabeth and Sue is certainly entertaining until it gets overly violent. But the bloodletting gets worse in a subsequent scene that wallows in its grotesquery. At this point, Fargeat has made her points, and her film becomes repetitive as she literally rubs her messages in viewers’ faces, dulling their impact. This would have been stronger with a modicum of restraint. Instead, it aims for WTF using gargoyles.
Nevertheless “The Substance” provides a marvelous showcase for Demi Moore, who is best when her character is at her worst. She engenders compassion as Elisabeth grapples with her aging body, and a scene where she is enfeebled and struggles to get out of a chair is both achingly painful and achingly funny. Elisabeth may be getting more decrepit, but her voice is strong and clear as she tries to regain control of a situation that folds in on itself in a clever final joke.
Likewise, Margaret Qualley is superb as Sue, winking throughout as if she is in on the joke and using her body playfully to tease men and assert her power as a woman. It is a canny performance, and both Moore and Qualley have extended wordless sequences where they convey so much of what they are thinking and feeling with just their silent expressions. These scenes make the film highly engaging.
In support, Dennis Quaid gives another gonzo performance (see also: “At Any Price” and “The Intruder”) with much of it in extreme closeup magnifying his offensiveness. His work here is destined to become a meme. A scene of him devouring shrimp is as outrageous as his outfits. (Credit costumer Emmanuelle Youchnovksi for some fabulous clothes, including Elisabeth’s signature canary yellow coat. The production design by Stanislas Reydellet is also top-notch.)
“The Substance” is shrewdly made — Fargeat showcases immense talent and vision lacing her film with aural and visual cues, but she eventually goes off the rails with the outrageousness, diluting the potent feminist messages about the dangers of body modification, and the consequences of messing with science. While there are many moments in the film that will prompt nods of agreement, too much of the last act will have viewers either hiding their eyes or rolling them. It is a shame this strong film devolves when it could have just ended.
Nevertheless, Fargeat displays sheer nerve in creating something unforgettable. For that, and Moore and Qualley’s fantastic performances, this film is more than worthwhile.
