The Substance is a recent Coralie Fargeat directed film starring Demi Moore, Margret Qually, and Dennis Quaid. It won best screenplay at The Cannes Film Festival. The film is in the horror genre but tackles themes beyond just being a typical horror movie. Demi Moore’s character Elizabeth Sparkle is fired from her job by Dennis Quaid’s Harvey. After getting fired she goes to the doctor and a young doctor recommends her ‘The Substance’, a drug that creates a younger, more attractive you. This is Margret Qually’s character who goes by ‘Sue’.
I loved a lot of this film, more than anything the effects impressed me beyond belief. The first time Sparkle transforms into Sue was extremely impressive, and the entire 3rd act was a spectacle to make you cringe of disgust. The visuals in this film were also beautiful, the framing of Qually from a low angle really makes you feel her innocence and framing Elizabeth at a high angle makes you feel her age. The main theme of this film is tackling entertainment’s beauty standards, and it does this well for the most part. Seeing the executives, including Harvy, be so quick to give Sue the role in a show that Elizabeth used to head was unrealistic, but compelling. Sue and Elizabeth’s dynamic really drive so much of this film. They are the same person but act as a mother, daughter dynamic. When Sue transforms back into Elizabeth she is angry, wanting the life she cannot have. When transforming back into Sue she is disgusted with the waste and rot that Elizabeth left. This is the BEST theming in the entire film.
The theme of age and beauty standards really takes a prominent role in the 2nd act, but by the 3rd the writing is way too on the wall with the beauty standards idea. There is a moment where Harvey says “Pretty girls should smile more!” in the 3rd act. This is repeated several times after and I just expected these themes to be more subtle. Speaking of the 3rd act I think this is where everything falls apart. Elizabeth is the original so every 7 days Sue has to be Elizabeth for a week. Sue starts to take more and more time to transform, decaying Elizabeth’s body until there is nothing left. At which point Elizabeth tries to stop the program, but can’t and halfway through the process destroys it. This makes them booth awake and Sue kills Elizabeth, and then at a big showing for her show she starts to fall apart, injecting The Substance into her Sue body and becoming a monster. This didn’t need to be a monster movie. The themes and horror aspects were already good enough and the monster movie aspects of the 3rd act made me feel like I was watching a cartoon parody of Carrie. The film that had so much going for it turned into a cartoon at the end and really made it fall apart and the entire ‘monkey paw’ premise of the movie was very predictable.
Overall I loved a lot of this film: the performances were outstanding, the effects were effective and grotesque, the visuals really draw you in. However, my ironic biggest problem comes down to the thing the film won at Cannes, the writing. It felt like it was pushing themes just to push them, pushing horror just to be grotesque with no real point behind it. I give this film a solid 7/10 for these reasons.