The 2024 Oscars came and went. Like clockwork, they awarded a film nobody cared about and will instantly forget while snubbing the actual best film of the year. As time goes on Hollywood gets gayer, more woke, more insane, and more insufferable. You can’t count on them to produce anything watchable.
In the heart of France, Coralie Fargeat, a fresh and hungry visionary, sucker-punched the entire film industry with her satirical body horror movie. Rejected by major studios for its content, she chose this project over working on Marvel’s Black Widow.
The Substance is not only a nightmarish character study that blends surrealist body horror and blunt-force trauma satire, but it’s also a gripping and stylish tour de force. What is the substance? Is this Demi Moore’s performance of a lifetime? Find out in our review of The Substance!
The Substance (2024)
Production Company: Working Title Films, Blacksmith
Distributor: Mubi, Metropolitan Filmexport
Director: Coralie Fargeat
Release Date: September 20, 2024
Picture a shimmering star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, its luster fading under the relentless march of time. This is the curious case of Elisabeth Sparkle, a woman whose name once dazzled marquees but now flickers dimly in the twilight of her career. She’s about to step through a doorway; not of wood or steel, but of desperation and desire, into a dimension of vanity and consequence.
Sparkle, a celebrated actress turned television fitness guru, finds herself discarded by the industry on her fiftieth birthday. Her age is deemed an unforgivable flaw by a crass yet pragmatic producer named Harvey. Cast aside like yesterday’s script, she stumbles upon a mysterious promise: a black-market elixir known only as “The Substance,” delivered to her in a moment of despair after a brush with a hospital’s shadowed corridors.
A USB drive whispers temptation: inject this neon-green serum and a younger, more radiant version of yourself will emerge. Sparkle is bound by one simple rule: share the time, seven days each, a delicate balance between the old and the new. What follows is a Cronenbergian nightmare focused on a woman whose hate for entropy is only matched by her desire to be beautiful.
Like a twisted, modern-day Jekyll and Hyde, they are two halves of a single soul, tethered by a regimen of stabilizers and switches. Becoming Sue, she steps into the spotlight Elisabeth lost. Her beauty catapulted her to fame as the new darling of Harvey’s airwaves, performing some of the most sexually charged workout videos ever produced.
Billboards rise, applause thunders, and for seven days at a time, Sue reigns—while Elisabeth lies dormant, a feeding tube her lifeline, her envy simmering beneath the surface. Elisabeth/Sue is a woman at odds with herself. Seeing Elisabeth reminds Sue of the ugly reality. Seeing Sue reminds Elisabeth of the artifice of the experience.
The Substance is a fantastical drug that isn’t meant to be taken literally. It’s an ingenious metaphor for many things. Not only does it depict the dangers of addictive beauty procedures, but it’s also the embodiment of the endless pursuit of an unattainable beauty standard imposed by women’s greatest enemy: themselves.
Elisabeth could have stopped at any time. She meets a high school friend who is still infatuated with her and still sees her as the picture of beauty he remembers her. Instead of settling down with her old high school crush who will adore her, she is too consumed with herself.
The story spirals as Sue begins to abuse the Substance. With every extra extraction she takes, Elisabeth’s matrix degrades, eventually leaving her as a deformed old crone. When the third act takes off, the film goes places never imagined. The unflinching and absurd climax is hilarious, yet tragic, boasting insane practical effects and gallons of blood.
Elisabeth sought to cheat time, only to find an impartial judge. In the pursuit of youth, she literally birthed her own undoing. The Substance is a film that sticks with you and bludgeons you over the head with a simple lesson: it’s ok to get old and to accept yourself with dignity.
Casting Demi Moore was a stroke of genius. Despite being ten years older than the character she plays, she looks pretty good, and all the years of being typecast as superficially beautiful characters is an awesome parallel for her character. Demi is Elisabeth and her battle with her co-star is a meta-layered narrative that adds authenticity to the story.
Demi’s performance is visceral and gutwrenching to watch. Elisabeth Sparke is a character she was born to play after years of typecasting. She holds nothing back and her fearless transformation of a once beautiful starlet into a haggard, naked, Quasimodo-like creature is awe-inspiring. Demi’s damage still shines through under all the makeup and latex.
Margaret Qualley as Sue is the dark side of Elisabeth. She is unbelievably sexy in this role, biting her lip sensually and showing off her delectable, molestable curves as Coralie’s camera lingers on her crotch and butt. She plays Hyde to Demi’s Jekyll but with a determined, spoiled brat tenacity. It’s no wonder why Hideo Kojima was compelled to cast her in Death Stranding.
The Substance‘s screenplay is tight and beautifully executed. There’s never a moment wasted and a lot is conveyed with striking imagery instead of clunky dialogue or exposition. The rules for the substance medication are impressively depicted with a clear understanding, backed up by a raw gut reaction and visceral sound design.
It’s a kinetic and simmering experience that feels like a mezcal cocktail that goes straight to your head. The story moves at a brisk clip and the overall production design is like something out of a Kubrick film. Scene construction makes extensive use of stark and minimalistic set design with symmetrical composition.
Dennis Quaid as the producer has a few scenes, but he makes every frame count. He’s a bombastic and uncouth jerk, yet I found him lovable. The film, surprisingly never makes him out to be truly evil. The man has obligations and he’s only doing his job. In a film bursting with grotesque body horror imagery, the scene of Quaid eating shrimp manages to be the most nauseatingly disgusting sequence in the film.
Qualley is a good sport for the absurd amounts of rubber and prosthetic makeup effects that encased her. The effects overall are seamless and convincing, even when they go over the top. Demi Moore’s dangling old hag boobs blend comedy and revulsion at the same time. As the film ramps up the satire and insanity, I couldn’t believe my eyes.
The Substance is a modern film shot in 8K on an Alexa LF; ideal for faithfully capturing flesh tones. This is an incredibly vibrant film and the downscale to 4K benefitted from an intense source. You can see every wrinkle on Demi’s face and appreciate the dazzling clarity and smoothness of Margaret’s complexion. The transfer is crisp and razor-sharp, with no banding or artifacts at all.
The sound is bombastic and aggressive. The 5.1 mix is like an angry tiger growl that shakes your soul. The thumping techno music during the Pump It Up scene feels like the sound waves are rattling your skeleton. The sound design is equally punchy. The squelching sounds and tearing flesh foley are palpable. You don’t just hear the disgusting symphony of hefty gushing, you feel it happening to you.
The Substance is not the best film of 2024 because it came out at a time when Hollywood was incapable of making anything watchable. It’s the best film because of its confident vision and impressive outrageous entertainment value. It’s a personal movie that feels like the director put a lot of thought into what it’s about and wanted to convey it in a darkly comedic way.
The Substance is one of the best body horror films of all time. It ranks up there with David Cronenberg’s The Fly, Society, or The Thing as stories that explore the existential horror of the self. This is a masterful film that shows huge promise for such a fresh-faced filmmaker, and I hope to see more of what she has in store for her next film.
The Substance (2024) was reviewed with a 4K Ultra HD Bluray copy purchased by Niche Gamer. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. The Substance (2024) is now available in 4K.
