Not everyone will be able to endure “The Substance,” a 140-minute fairy tale of satirical body horror madness. In fact, those with even a mild aversion to body horror should consider steering away entirely. A handful of people walked out of USC’s advanced screening, some undoubtedly unable to stomach the film’s bloodier moments.
Those brave enough to stick around, however, heavily vocalized both joy and disgust, often hand-in-hand. A packed theater sounded akin to a haunted house, reflecting the chaotic energy carried throughout “The Substance.” Coralie Fargeat’s focused vision only compounds in humor and horror as the movie progresses, building to a third act that lovers of the genre must see in a crowded theater this Halloween season.
“The Substance” finds Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) at a particularly vulnerable time. The Oscar-winning actress has just discovered she’s going to lose her job as a televised aerobics instructor — on her birthday, of all days. The decision comes from Harvey (Dennis Quaid), a not-so-subtly-named executive who could make a Muppet villain seem mild-mannered.
Harvey, portrayed through disgusting close-ups and frequent leers, decides Elisabeth has lost her look, calling for her to be replaced. Moore’s character is simply too old to be marketable, she’s told, in an industry that places a premium on youth as beauty. Tragically, the opinions of men like Harvey do matter to her, beyond the bearing on her career. Now, they’ve made her hate herself.
Elisabeth only has her fame: no family surrounds her, no friends check in on her. Some innate part of her longs to be with her own Hollywood Walk of Fame star. A portrait of herself looms over her living room, while an Elisabeth Sparkle billboard stares through the window. She frequently wears a bright yellow trench coat throughout the film, a simultaneous bid for concealment and attention. Money seemingly isn’t an issue; happiness surely is.
Before long, Elisabeth receives a flash drive that is simply labeled “The Substance.” As she loads it onto her TV, an emotionless, bass-filled voice taunts the aging star with a series of questions: “Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself: younger, more beautiful, more perfect?”
How couldn’t she?
Elisabeth lives in a heightened world. She resides in a giant apartment with large windows and an all-white bathroom. Teaching aerobics on TV appears to be the pinnacle of fame, occupying multiple billboards throughout Hollywood. Every man is an idiot, a creep or, more often, both at once. Many of the film’s settings look brightly colored and overly manufactured, including a surreal hallway evocative of “The Shining’s” Overlook Hotel at Elisabeth’s studio.
Fargeat’s heightened vision greatly succeeds through the film’s use of sound. Every element seems dialed up to an often uncomfortable degree — blood sounds wetter, gasps sound breathier, outfits sound more leathery. Each time a character falls to the ground, a horrifically hollow “Bonk!” gives the implication of more damage than is there. Listening to “The Substance,” at times, is just as gross as watching it.
At first, Elisabeth tries to resist The Substance’s offer. Yet decades of objectification and a quest for fame’s validation make the offer too compelling to refuse. Soon, she reaches out to the company and is provided a drug, one which creates a younger body into which she can transfer her mind: “Sue” (Margaret Qualley).
The first transformation unveils the body horror that will define “The Substance’s” reputation The sequence shows the visceral reality of Sue’s “birth” in a way other films might eschew, evoking the transformative horror of films like “The Fly” and “An American Werewolf in London.”
The reveal of Sue, in contrast, is not framed as horrific. For her first scene, Fargeat and cinematographer Benjamin Kracun frame Sue as an object of desire — for Elisabeth and for everyone around her. She spends the majority of her early scenes fully nude, with the camera leaving little to the imagination. Even when she does don clothes (often skin-tight exercise uniforms), she is framed more like she’s in a beer commercial than a horror movie for much of the film’s second act.
When Elisabeth becomes Sue, the Oscar-winning actress would seemingly have unlimited options. Yet she immediately chooses to return to her old job as an aerobics instructor, now on a younger, even more sexualized program. Sue shares none of her predecessor’s shame, and she seems fine with simply taking Elisabeth’s place.
The framing of Qualley throughout the film is gratuitous by design, and approached with a sense of humor. Sue represents youth, sex and desire, and the character is shot as such. In doing so, “The Substance” toes the line of undermining its own commentary, spending a significant amount of runtime objectifying Qualley to make a point about the tragedy of objectification. Last year, Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” found itself at the center of a similar debate about using nudity and sexualization for cinematic commentary; the film went on to win multiple Academy Awards, including Best Actress for Emma Stone.
Fargeat largely makes effective use of this framing, however, in a way that feels integral to the world she’s created. “The Substance” is a film of excess in every conceivable way, down to a 140-minute runtime that nearly feels overloaded. Sue’s explicit depiction may not “advance the plot,” as has become a popular social media discussion around sex in film, but it certainly heightens Fargeat’s world and creative vision.
The Substance comes with a list of rules. Every seven days, the user must switch from one body to the other without exception. Using more time in one body forces the other to pay a price. Above all, Elisabeth and Sue are encouraged to remember that they “are one,” each halves of a singular being.
Despite this unity, Moore and Qualley do not play their roles in the same way. While some mannerisms are carried over, they often feel like independent entities, pointedly curated by each actress. Though their minds are theoretically the same, the duo strives to portray a riff on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde more than they aim for a Shazam!-like transformation. Rarely do Elisabeth and Sue feel like the same person.
Instead, they play two sides of an objectified coin: Elisabeth drowns in self-loathing, while Sue dives head-first into infantilization. Each resents the other, heedless of the fact that they are one. This choice heightens the fabulistic elements of the story rather than staying beholden to a gimmick of imitations. While Qualley could portray a convincing Moore (and vice versa), both performers tread more interesting ground by playing by their own rules.
Throughout the film, Moore makes a feast of her performance, alternatively reveling in vulnerability, anger and madness. As the film progresses, we see a gradual degradation of Elisabeth’s looks. To Elisabeth, this is a degradation of self (or, at the very least, self-worth).
The film takes pointed inspiration from “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” with Elisabeth herself being the rotting portrait. Often, this allows Moore to play up the more humorous elements of this transformation, shifting her performance from a Hollywood star to something more resembling “Snow White’s” Old Hag. It’s a joyously unhinged turn from the often composed star.
Through this extravagance, however, Moore manages to dig actual pathos out of her archetypal protagonist. Moore lends the role a tangible sense of vulnerability, one that propels the story from beginning to end. One key scene, which sees the actress struggle with her makeup in the mirror before leaving her home, cuts through the humor and gore of “The Substance” to leave audiences with a much realer, sadder sense of horror, and a palpable sense of anger. Moore spends a solid amount of the film’s runtime in the nude, but this scene is the most naked she ever feels.
Qualley, likewise, continues to prove she’s one of the most interesting young actors working today. In “The Substance,” she turns in a fearless performance that only becomes more manic as the film progresses. As Qualley takes more on her shoulders, she slips perfectly into the body horror mayhem that characterizes the movie.
Throughout “The Substance,” Fargeat continually ups the ante, layering on horrific twists and wrinkles that arise from Elisabeth and Sue’s game of Jekyll and Hyde. This builds to a place of pure, over-the-top, Cronenbergian horror that will surely make audiences both laugh and retch. The truly delightful third act that demands to be seen with a crowd.
What’s most striking about “The Substance” is how fully Fargeat has realized this world and its tone. The satire, while far from subtle, never acts in disservice to the film or its horror story; in fact, its mean sense of humor often provides a perfect release valve to some of the tenser, grosser elements of the story. This film never tries to be anything less than itself, and Fargeat fully succeeds in executing her ambitious vision. In “The Substance,” Fargeat remembers that, just like Sue and Elizabeth, humor and gore are one.