The Substance

Demi Moore as Elisabeth Sparkle

Coralie Fargeat's The Substance, Ms. Fargeat's second feature, is a memorable body horror flick laced with elements of corrosive satire. Ms. Fargeat's script chronicles the desperation of aging starlet Elisabeth Sparkle, gutsily embodied by Demi Moore, who has been fired from her job hosting a fitness workout show because of her age. A mysterious (corporate) entity offers a seeming cure to her ills, a process that will give birth to a sleeker and younger version of herself that will come to be known as Sue (Margaret Qualley). The two will share a symbiotic relationship, with one of the duo at rest while the other is active. Of course, things don't goes as planned, and one of the duo's monkeying with the prescribed regimen leads to a grotesquely tragic ending. 

The film is influenced by the ideas of the Situationists, for good and ill, particularly Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle. ♓ It is hard to boil down such a weighty tome (and its attendant film) to a few blurbs, but the book is chiefly a critique of consumer capitalism in which the corporate commodification of culture supplants personal interaction as one's primary experience. This is what is displayed in The Substance to largely bracing effect. From the opening scenes of the film, with arch demon capitalist Randy Quinn loudly scarfing down jumbo shrimp, consumption is the signal motif. As shiny new, pneumatic Sue enjoys living out Sparkle's dreams, Elisabeth retreats to her lair to gorge on roast chicken in front of the telly. If one can't live up to the ideal image projected by society's video stream, retreat is the only resort. I was swept along by the film's satiric glee and its tactile feel, particularly Raffertie's score and Emmanuelle Youchnovski's costume design. The faceless organization that provides the substance to Elisabeth represents a sly dig at Amazon. Elisabeth's journey to retrieve that substance from its corporate locker is the most effective cinematic conjuring of a nightmare vision of subterranean Los Angeles since Mulholland Drive. 

While the film's neo-Marxist critique of capitalist induced alienation helps to sharpen the teeth of the film's bite, it also tends to flatten out its characterizations. Elisabeth has little back story or depth of character. That is part of the point I know, capitalism has turned her into a zombified consumer, but it leaves the viewer with precious little empathically human to latch onto. Quaid's Mephistopheles character, shot unsubtly with a fish eye lens for close-ups, comes off too broadly and, worse. too goofily. Part of this is due to misfortune. Ray Liotta, who knew how to bring menace to a role, died after being cast and Quaid was a last minute replacement. Quaid has too friendly a screen persona to be an effective villain and Fargeat's over direction makes it seem like he is mugging for the camera. The two lead actresses offer performances that are marvels of physical dexterity and bravery. Their naked corpuses are on display for a quarter of the film, but, to Ms. Fargeat's credit, the end effect managed to sour this confirmed heterosexual on sex for at least two hours after the film's completion. Ms. Qualley's performance brilliantly captures the ferocity and narcissism of a character who is all surface. Ms. Moore is merely adequate, not quite plumbing the depths of her character's resentment and despair. For most of the film, she just seems sullen and doesn't nail her character's rages. Ms. Moore has been quite good in lightweight and charming roles since she caught Tinsel Town's attention as ace reporter Jackie Templeton on General Hospital, but when required to show off her actorly chops, as in The Scarlet Letter, her limitations are obvious. The two dimensional nature of Elisabeth Sparkle, and I place the blame primarily on Ms. Fargeat's conception of the character, prevents The Substance from rising to the level of a true body horror masterpiece like Dead Ringers. The Substance is brilliant and never boring, but it lacks a human touch.

Margaret Qualley as Sue

Like every other horror film released these days, The Substance is rife with cinematic references. Happily, for once, these allusions actually enhance the film's meaning and impact. Not only David Cronenberg's legacy, but the work of Stuart Gordon, Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, and Frank Henenlotter has been fruitfully plundered. Mark Kermode has sagely noted the use of a Bernard Herrmann's musical motif from Vertigo, contained in the scene when Sue tries to affix earrings to her head, which amplifies The Substance's theme of doubling. What has not been much commented on is The Substance's numerous Kubrick references. The climactic New Year's Eve show features Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra (the musical theme to 2001) and the shot from Elisabeth's door aperture of a nosy neighbor mimics Kubrick's shot from HAL's POV of the two astronauts conspiring against him in that film. Furthermore, the voice of the corporation that Elisabeth consults as she navigates her treatment shares the artificial tonelessness of HAL. It has the empathy of a machine. Elisabeth's white bathroom calls to mind the white room where Keir Dullea finishes his metamorphic journey. The Shining is referenced in the treatment of the television corporation's headquarters. The color scheme of the bathroom greatly resembles The Shining's bathroom where Grady the servant reminds Jack Torrance of his duties. A corridor, with its geometric patterns, calls to mind the Overlook Hotel's interior. These two intimations reinforce the notion that Elisabeth, like Jack Torrance, is involved in a Faustian bargain. There is also the beauty that Torrance encounters in room 237's bathroom who, like the women in The Substance, turns very swiftly into a decayed hag.

The Substance suffers from plausibility issues, but this is a logical result of Ms. Fargeat basing the film in the realm of a media generated fantasy. I thought the showgirls at the conclusion of the film looked like they belonged in the Folies Bergère rather than an American network show, but the director is French, after all. Despite my carping, The Substance is a witty and entertaining film that coasts along on the psychic energy of its gifted auteur. 

♓ I love the description of the aging Debord in Rachel Kushner's new Creation Lake: "...like a dead goldfish in a dirty bowl." pg. 57.