REVIEW: “The Substance” (2024)

WRITER’S NOTE: The following was originally posted on my Facebook page on February 28, 2025. 

Very rarely does a horror feature make such an impact in the film industry that critics and audiences can’t help but notice, whether we like it or not. In a case where such a film has been making numerous rounds in the awards and critical circuits (including this season’s Oscars), Coralie Fargeat’s excessive and repulsive body horror extravaganza, The Substance, stands out as a satire on beauty, appearance, and media pressures when it comes to body standards, especially for women. 

The small cast includes Demi Moore as aging movie star-turned-fitness instructor Elizabeth Sparkle, who is told by her chauvinistic, greedy, and over the top boss (played by Dennis Quaid, whose shrimp-gorging scene should be enough to convince you of such) that her best days are behind her. After miraculously surviving a horrible car wreck, she hears about an underground experimental drug that can revive her youth. What emerges from this process—rather, quite literally, her back—is the younger and more beautiful “Sue” (played by Margaret Qualley, whose billboard image seemingly shares back at Moore with equal amounts of pride and slyness). 

A first for streaming service Mubi, who released the film theatrically, The Substance is a slow-burn, creepy-crawler with a pulse-pounding soundtrack. A fan of the sub-genre herself, Fargeat was clearly influenced by everything from David Cronenberg (body horror elements a la The Fly), Stanley Kubrick (symmetrical hallways a la The Shining, and Strauss music a la 2001), David Lynch (surreal, nightmarish imagery a la Eraserhead), and Brian De Palma (excessive bloodbaths a la Carrie). Oh, and Jane Fonda workout videos. Fargeat is undoubtedly a very bold, uncompromising filmmaker and visual storyteller; her original screenplay won at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. She and her team have conjured up striking imagery from stars on the Walk of Fame to eggs, bright spotlights, and the packaging, design, and rules of the titular drug and its contents. 

The Substance certainly has something to say, with themes of being remembered and/or forgotten, identifying one’s self by success and status, instant gratification that (literally and figuratively) evaporates as quick as it comes, and how that can all lead to a lonely, isolated life and lifestyle. (Moore confirmed this in a recent interview with actresses Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, and Cameron Diaz.) 

The thing is, the way the film says and presents those themes and ideas is so in-your-face, outrageous (emphasis on RAGE), and unsettling. And that’s intentional. This includes scenes of graphic and gratuitous nudity and sexuality (Sue first emerges from Elizabeth’s back, which is eventually sown shut, while the former’s workouts routines look more like erotic dancing than fitness). Ditto sound design and sound mixing on steroids. There’s a moment when Moore goes completely off the rails and uses an egg beater, which had me thinking things were going to get messy. And they do, just not in the way I thought from this clip alone. She has emotional depth in her performance as Elizabeth, including a now-famous scene when she stressfully smears lipstick and makeup all over her face. 

Consequences rear their ugly head, in terms of not respecting the aforementioned balance (“What is done on one side cannot be reversed on the other side”), as well as robbing one’s life, complete with decaying makeup effects that get scary, eerie, and gross. Wonders a stranger who apparently goes through the same procedure, “Has she started eating away at you?” (Chilling.) This is, unsurprisingly, not a film for the squeamish. Take it from somebody who thought Deadpool & Wolverine was bonkers. The Substance is ultimately a tragic, cautionary tale that goes as far as it does and never lets up, just like Elizabeth can’t let go. BBC film critic Nicholas Barber was right about one thing: “No one who sees Fargeat’s film will forget it.” 

#filmfreeq #bekerianreviews #21stcenturycinema #mubi #coraliefargeat #thesubstance2024