Reports from the Cannes Film Festival told us the French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat’s intentionally nauseating, wildly over-the-top and relentlessly grotesque body horror parable “The Substance” caused a number of walkouts but also earned an 11-minute standing ovation, and I have a couple of notes about that:
Not that I’m saying this garish take on Hollywood’s obsession with the Next-New-Shiny-Perfect-Disposable Thing is without its moments. Writer-director Fargeart (who made her feature debut with the memorable and subversive action thriller “Revenge” in 2017) is too talented to deliver uninteresting work, and there are moments that are lyrical and poignant, e.g., a beautifully rendered opening sequence involving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The problem is that “The Substance” hammers home the message in increasingly thunderous fashion while never going deeper into its main thesis: that our society and in particular the entertainment industry is obsessed with physical attributes to the point where it has warped our collective sense of self-worth for generations. This same point is being made in the Netflix film “Uglies,” and while “The Substance” is vastly superior on every level of filmmaking, it’s not offering much more in the way of substantial commentary.
Demi Moore gives one of her best performances in a role with obvious parallels to her own career. She’s one Elisabeth Sparkle, who was once a major, Oscar-winning film star and is now the host of a highly popular TV aerobics show. (Shades of Jane Fonda.) When Elisabeth turns 50, a slimy and cartoonishly loud studio executive named Harvey (Dennis Quaid) takes her to lunch, and we zoom in to within inches of Harvey’s face as he gobbles down shrimp in gag-inducing fashion and gleefully tells Elisabeth she’s out, because once you hit 50, you might as well be dead. (The camera frequently lingers on imagery that almost taunts you to look away. It’s an easy, blunt technique.)
Shortly thereafter, Elisabeth learns of The Substance, a mysterious, transformative, anti-aging treatment that creates a younger, “perfect” version of oneself. With only minimal hesitation, Elisabeth signs up for the program and is given directions to a secret safe-deposit box, which contains the necessary elixirs and syringes and equipment. (Talk about the setup for a viral “unboxing” video.) That’s our cue for a horrifying albeit mesmerizing sequence in which a younger version of Elisabeth (played by Margaret Qualley) literally cracks through her body, like a gorgeous take on the Chestburster from “Alien” as filtered through “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”
The rules of the experiment dictate that each version of Elisabeth gets seven days of consciousness while the other is in a comatose state, and then they must switch places. Elisabeth is also reminded, time and time again, that there is no “each,” that they are “one.” Still, Elisabeth and this new edition, who calls herself “Sue,” have completely different personalities and soon become bitter rivals in a kind of warped, house-of-mirrors spin on “All About Eve” and “The Swan.”
Sue wins an audition to replace Elisabeth and becomes the toast of Hollywood — but she starts violating the seven-day rule, the consequences for Elisabeth be damned. Each time Elisabeth is returned to consciousness, she is horrified to see her body and face have rapidly aged, and then the deformities emerge, and “old” Elisabeth starts to look like the sibling of Jeff Goldblum’s “Brundlefly.” When Sue is awake, she, too, begins to feel the consequences of her obsession with staying young and beautiful and popular.
Everything in “The Substance” is stylized and surreal and exaggerated. Quaid’s Harvey is a leering caricature right out of “Natural Born Killers.” The hallways and bathroom of the TV studio are reminiscent of “The Shining.” There’s a blood-soaked scene that makes “Carrie” seem understated. The satire becomes almost numbingly obvious over the far too long running time of 140 minutes, and with all due appreciation for the strong work by the leads, the horrifically impressive VFX and prosthetics, and a few moments of pitch-black humor, we exit the film feeling more pummeled than enlightened.
