The Substance, Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

What Lurks Within

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

 The Substance (Coralie Fargeat)   rated R   141min.

Here’s the trailer:

       (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

       activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

 (This will be a long plot summary because there’s a “hell” of a lot going on here.)  Former movie star/current TV exercise guru Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore)—which we know about immediately by seeing her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a scene from her televised workout routine—has just turned 50, finds herself being pushed off of her show by sleazy/ratings-hungry producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid), who wants a younger, sexier presence for the format.  As Elisabeth’s driving away from the studio she becomes distracted by seeing a billboard of herself being torn down, crashes her car, is sent to a hospital for evaluation.  She’s deemed medically-fit but quietly receives a flash drive from a young nurse which is about a process called The Substance which promises a “younger, more beautiful, more perfect” version of her so she acquires it only to find out the required injection doesn’t make her younger but instead results in a younger version of herself emerging from her back, causing her to go unconscious as the nude younger woman (Margaret Qualley) sews up Elisabeth’s gaping back skin, then knows she must inject her older self with a weekly liquid food supply and take out from Elisabeth’s spinal column a daily stabilizer fluid to inject in herself, with the absolute admonition each woman can only be conscious for 7 days before switching back with the other, as a male voice on their phone line to Substance HQ emphasizes these 2 are actually truly 1. 

 The younger woman calls herself Sue, goes to the audition for Elisabeth’s replacement, gets the job with the proviso she needs to be off every other week to care for her sick mother (may not fully be a lie, as Elisabeth—in a near-mythological manner [see Zeus and Athena]—gave “birth” to Sue).  Sexy Sue becomes an overnight sensation, with Elisabeth's downside when Sue wants more than 7 days awake at so she siphons off extra doses of her older self’s stabilizer fluid to inject into herself, giving her more days in control.  When Elisabeth next comes into consciousness she sees 1 finger aged noticeably, so she contacts Substance HQ only to learn there’s no reversal process, she has to accept she and Sue are one with the need for them to work out their problems (how they’re supposed to do this when one of them is comatose isn’t explained).  As time progresses, Elisabeth continues to age, becomes a recluse, sits around her elaborate domain gorging on junk food (in a grotesque scene, this causes Sue to pull a cooked chicken drumstick out of her navel) as the two women come to detest each other, even as Sue is scheduled to host a major New Year’s Eve telecast; Elisabeth's forced to continue the situation because if she stops her body will remain aged, even as Sue continues to abuse the process with those ongoing extra doses of Elisabeth's stabilizer.

 However, 3 months later just before the big event Sue no longer has any more stabilizer to steal.  Substance HQ says she must switch with Elisabeth again in order for the older woman to produce more fluid, but when Elisabeth awakens she finds herself as hideous: near-bald, a hunchback, other deformities.  ⇒She gets a serum intended to terminate Sue, then stops halfway through the injection awakening Sue; they fight, with Sue killing Elisabeth, then she’s off to the TV spectacular even as she begins to deteriorate as well as teeth, fingernails, and a ear fall off.  She rushes back home, desperately uses the original activator in an attempt to produce a better version of herself, but what comes out is even more hideous than older Elisabeth, a grotesque monster (a screen title calls it Monstro Elisasue [just as the previous 2 protagonists—who serve as their own antagonists—had been identified]); if you wish to know more about how it was created, go here) who tears a face photo of Elisabeth from a poster to hide her own face (actual faces of Elisabeth and Sue also protrude from the malformed body), takes the stage in front of a full auditorium, but the mask falls off, the audience is horrified, the creature is attacked which spews blood all over everyone, then it escapes but outside its body explodes, with just Elisabeth’s face and some body goo sliming its way to Elisabeth’s Hollywood star.  Next morning a sidewalk cleaner guy just washes this muck away.⇐

 Recently, I reviewed It's What's Inside, which I discussed as a mad-scientist horror film, not sci-fi, due to the technology being employed to shift a person’s consciousness into another body, with tragic results for all involved.  Likewise, The Substance is often called sci-fi because of the deadly technology involved (with clear warnings about dire consequences if procedures aren’t properly followed), but I’d put it in that same horror category due to the unnatural adjustments to a human body (Frankenstein, anyone?) which take their toll on both Elisabeth and Sue as they reject their supposed-“oneness” with dire consequences for both.  In this video (14:50) Lucas Blue goes into extensive analysis of this film (SPOILERS, of course), augmented by statements from Fargeat and Moore about society’s insidious, misogynistic expectations of women which become so engrained in far too many of our population (especially those in the public eye or who wish that for themselves, even on just a local level) that older women would sacrifice aspects of themselves for cultural recognition just as younger ones would do the same to achieve/maintain such a manufactured fame.

 In part, this challenging film is a quite depressing story because it speaks to truths that shouldn’t need to exist, along with being hard to watch when Monstro emerges, but if you can stomach the disturbing visuals that increase with the various deteriorations I think you’d find The Substance to be a marvelous cinematic achievement with intense acting, powerful visuals (especially closeups on the faces of the women, fisheye-lens exaggerations of Quaid’s disgusting character), and a worthwhile message even if you have to endure surreal circumstances to understand it.  Certainly, the CCAL joins me in highly recommending this disturbing experience, as the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are at 90% while the Metacritic average score is a hefty (for them) 78%.*  Need further incentive?  At the 2024 Cannes Film Festival it was nominated for the Palm d’Or top prize, won Best Screenplay for Fargeat.  If you’re interested, you have several options to see it: The Substance still plays in 205 domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters, down from a high of 1,949, having made about $16 million so far ($48.5 globally); you can buy it for $19.99 from Apple TV+ (this platform’s free for 7 days, then $9.99 monthly if you stay); it’s also free for 7 days on MUBI (again, $9.99 a month if you stay) or there’s a MUBI-Amazon Prime Video combo free for 7 days (it's $10.99 monthly if you stay).

*Which, by my interpretation, brings me in line with these more-acknowledged critics in that my 4 of 5 stars, 80%, essentially matches the current MC score while with RT numbers the question isn’t how good but just is it good or bad so their results are usually higher than the MC reviews' average.  With RT the highest they can go is into the 90s up to the extremely-rare 100%; yet, for me, my normal highest is the aforementioned 4 stars (saving 4½ and 5 stars for truly medium-defining-cinema), so my usual highest I find to be plausibly similar to what RT pushes into their highest level, as an RT 95% simply means one of the best offerings of a given year whereas my 95% (4½ stars) is based on the entire sweep of cinema from the early 20^th century.  So, of 52 releases both I and RT/MC have reviewed this year, by my rationale I’ve agreed with at least 1 of these critic-compilation services for 32 of them with at least 1 match of those 2 sites (where we diverge in these, I’m often higher, although it’s about 50/50 regarding higher or lower when we don’t converge our results at all).

 By now, you may have sensed a similarity between this film and the famous Oscar Wilde novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)—adapted into a play and a few films including one by Albert Lewin (1945), another by Oliver Parker (2009)—where a handsome, aristocratic young man sells his soul so he’ll stay young while the image on his painted portrait ages over time, but, hidden away, no one sees it—while Dorian lives a life of debauchery—until circumstances lead to tragedy, so there are certainly parallels with, or at least allusions to, Wilde’s narrative and our current film.  Yet, the ultimate focus of Wilde’s book is on the dangers of moral transgressions by anyone whereas The Substance is a harsh critique of how women are marginalized in contemporary media content, brainwashed to actively buy into such dehumanization.  As with my recent review of Woman of the Hour about a serial killer who preyed on females, The Substance isn’t an easy experience to watch, but both are quite well-made (especially the latter) with lessons to be learned that aren’t truly fictional.  To bring all this to closure, here’s my Musical Metaphor, Pink Floyd’s “Time” (1973 The Dark Side of the Moon album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEGL7j2LN84, not only because of lyrics such as “The sun is the same in a relative way / But you’re older / Shorter of breath / And one day closer to death” but also in this video what you have is an edited compilation of band members David Gilmore and Roger Waters from separate concerts after Waters left in an acrimonious manner so it would seem they’re again one but actually are as separated as Elisabeth and Sue.  Even if you don’t explore this film I hope you’ll enjoy the song which may help with “Ticking away / The moments that make up a dull day” (or an awful election nightmare, as the case may be).

                

SHORT TAKES

                

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:   

Some options: (1) Paramount adds 3.5 million streaming subscribers despite TV, movie losses; (2) Sony Pictures profits slip in second quarter; (3) IMDb's November screening calendar; (4) IMDb's 5 Things to Watch on the week of 11/11/2024 (help yourself; I’m not all that interested).

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