The Substance (2024) Review: It’s Demi Moore’s Finest Hour in Coralie Fargeat’s Bold Pitch-Black Satire of Beauty Standards and a Love Letter to Body Horror

I have been anticipating Coralie Fargeat’s sophomore feature The Substance ever since the movie opened at Cannes to positive responses. It even earned Fargeat a nomination for the coveted Palme d’Or (lost to Sean Baker’s Anora) and took home the Best Screenplay award. Now that it’s already available on the digital platform, I finally got my chance to watch it and 2 hours and 21 minutes later, The Substance proves Fargeat’s blood-soaked debut Revenge was no fluke.

But first, the story: 50-year-old Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is a has-been Hollywood star already past her prime. Even her producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid) finds her no longer relevant to today’s generation and is looking to replace her with a fresh, young talent. One day upon driving past the billboard and noticing her ad being taken down, she got distracted and ended up in a car accident. She somehow survives, albeit a few bruises and this is where he meets a young male nurse (Robin Greer) in a hospital during a check-up. He handles her a USB flash drive, which turns out to be a commercial for the experimental procedure dubbed “The Substance”.

The procedure in question comes in the form of multiple serums that promise a better version of oneself, not to mention “younger, more beautiful, more perfect”. Elisabeth hesitates at first but it doesn’t take long before she takes the risk by placing the order via a phone call. She is required to go to a specific address using a designated keycard that is already mailed to her home and obtain her package from one of the lockers. The package contains simple instructions, syringe & tube kits, the liquid food substance and bottles of serums that come with different labels such as “Activator” and “Stabiliser”.

What follows is a methodical scene of Elisabeth performing the procedure according to the step-by-step instructions. The result? A younger clone squeezes out of Elisabeth’s body from her back after the serum injection and later names herself Sue (Margaret Qualley). I’m glad Fargeat didn’t resort to de-ageing Demi Moore to play the younger version and instead went for the tried-and-tested route by casting Margaret Qualley. It’s picture-perfect for Elisabeth, even when she needs to go through all the trouble of “cloning” her younger self.

But there’s a catch: the co-existence between Elisabeth and Sue must switch places every seven days. For a while there, it’s a whole new world of golden opportunity after Sue successfully wins over the audition to lead the aerobics TV show. Harvey likes what he sees and is happy with the result as Sue’s new show’s rating has subsequently gone through the roof.

Now, if only Sue would adhere to the seven-day rule, there wouldn’t be any side effects but she eventually got greedy. Why share a life with someone else when one can have everything completely? That thought has since driven Sue after she somehow develops consciousness of her own, resulting in her breaking all the rules and it’s not, well, pretty. Fargeat doesn’t sugarcoat the familiar question of how far would one go to stay young and beautiful, especially in the cutthroat world of entertainment where looks matter. Elisabeth Sparkle may have been once a celebrated Hollywood star but that was ages ago, even though she continues to maintain in good shape.

But for a producer like Harvey who only cares about rating and giving what people want, it doesn’t matter how Elisabeth looks her best because, to him, she has overstayed her welcome. She’s old. End of the story. Fargeat made her point loud and clear in a purposefully crude manner during a scene where she frames Harvey peeling shrimps, puts them in his mouth and chews the food in a close-up, indicating the way he eats sloppily matters a lot more than talking to Elisabeth, who sits in front of him at the table in a restaurant. Harvey is a classic a-hole, sleazy Hollywood producer and Dennis Quaid plays the supporting role well even if his character tends to look and act cartoonish.

And yet, that’s the whole point of this movie: a pitch-black satire about ageism, sexism and above all, the unrealistic beauty standards towards female celebrities. Demi Moore, who plays Elisabeth Sparkle, is no doubt the classic case of art imitating life and she’s perfect for the role, easily her best performance in her decades-long acting career. Moore’s character reflects her own real-life career, who rose to fame in the mid-’80s appearing in St. Elmo’s Fire before becoming a bona fide star in the ’90s. It was that era when she commanded the big screen in a string of high-profile blockbusters from Ghost to A Few Good Men and Disclosure. She even made history at the time when she earned a whopping US$12.5 million to play the titular role in 1996’s Striptease before her fame gradually declined.

Going back to her role as Elisabeth Sparkle, Moore does a great job playing a washed-up actress who becomes increasingly desperate to stay relevant. But the real deal comes later in the movie when Sue begins to go too far about being selfish and neglects the rules, leading to Elisabeth’s gradual mental and physical breakdowns. Her co-star Margaret Qualley excels in her part as the object of desire with Fargeat’s camerawork often ogling at her body parts and deliberately framing her from the satirical perspective of a male gaze.

As Fargeat successfully nails the cautionary tale and the biting satire that goes with it, The Substance evolves into a grotesque horror during the second half of the movie. She pays homage to the early days of David Cronenberg’s works of the body-horror genre and even David Lynch, particularly The Elephant Man along with Brian Yuzna’s Progeny and at one point, there’s a nod to Brian De Palma’s Carrie. It’s icky, gross and at the same time, surreal with the special effects reportedly shot largely in a practical manner using prosthetics and makeup. It’s a clear love letter that would particularly satisfy fans of the genres.

Fargeat equally deserves praise for some of her minimalist styles within the movie’s go-for-broke excess, notably the earlier part where the camera stays static from the top down on Elisabeth’s Hollywood Walk of Fame. Using the time-lapse technique, the scene focuses on the floor being made from the beginning to the camera flashes photographing Elisabeth before her Hollywood Walk of Fame is accidentally smeared with ketchup and fast food by a passerby, summarising the rise and fall of her career. A great movie not to be missed and easily one of the best movies I have seen this year.