Demi Moore, Demi Moore. Obviously, I wasn’t alive in the eighties, but when I think Demi Moore, the only movies to come to mind are Ghost and Striptease, so it might be good to have another movie for which she’s recognised 😊Actually, my biggest love for Demi Moore comes from voicing Esmerlda in Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, where she’s a black character, so that’s a big no-no these days.
Living in a world where morning aerobics is still a viable industry somehow, Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) has “aged out” of her booming television career that once netted her a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Understandably unsettled, Elizabeth is unsure of her next move until an option finds her – the Substance, a mysterious medical procedure involving a vial of green liquid injected into the veins that will create a much younger version of herself to once again stalk the day. But there are rules to follow to make sure this process runs smoothly. And do you think Elizabeth and the new Sue (Margaret Qualley) will follow any of them? No! Written and directed by Coralie Fargeat, enjoy The Substance.
Oh, how I’m in two minds! On one hand, our main character is such an idiot. But it allows for the movie to play out like the ultimate slow-motion car crash that always leaves you eager to find out just what will happen next. So where shall I start? I’ll start with the positive… It’s always a talent when a movie can stay virtually wordless and engaging. The movie is also compiled through an absorbing display of close-ups to inform the story, from eggs, to effervescent tablets in water. It’s ugly enough when sleazy boss Harvey (Denis Quaid) is eating prawns, through the slurping and extreme close-ups of his chewing, without us to know of the shocking body horror yet to come 🤢 Yeah, if you don’t like needles, here is a movie you’ll be watching with your head in your hands. I don’t see a movie often with a packed house, but while Elizabeth is preparing to get and use the substance for the first time, our crowded theatre was on tenterhooks. You could hear a pin drop; captivated by an anticipation that comes around more than a few times, as the pair of ladies and their situation grows increasingly dour. Fargeat has certainly captured a colourful, intense, and visually thoughtful movie through her direction, there’s no doubt about it. And perhaps it’s because it’s so rare we see such a passionate exhibit of practical effects these days, it’s a breath of fresh air to appreciate, even if it’s here to induce a lot of wincing. I personally always hate teeth and nail stuff, and here I’ve hit the double 😵
But I first started having personal problems with The Substance as soon as Margaret Qualley hit the screen. I hate to say it, but… those aren’t her tits. No, I’ve seen them in Drive Away Dolls, and Kinds of Kindness, just this year actually, and as much as they might be a gorgeous pair, those aren’t hers. I’m not sure that’s her ass either, even though there wouldn’t be a girl alive who wouldn’t want that ass; or man for that fact, to hold and squeeze. I understand that Sue has to have those tits to match the proportions of Demi Moore, but it took me out of the movie, just thinking on how this is a story about unrivaled youthful beauty while what we’re seeing is artificial pixels on the screen. I think it dilutes the impact of the message when no doubt you can’t compete with perfection, when the competition isn’t even real. It just disappointed me; and then later on, when Qualley is literally pulling out her front teeth, I had to laugh, thinking “don’t Qualley, they’re your number one identifier!” Plus, they’re the only thing about you in this movie that’s real 😅
And as the premise revealed itself, it gave me time to ponder, “where was this going to go?” Was it going to be a Freaky Friday, where through a challenging experience on both sides, both women would learn value in one another? But then, where’s the horror in that? I am still somewhat confused about what the hell is going on, because the movie makes a big deal about how Elizabeth and Sue are one, but there doesn’t seem to be any way for them to share their experience at all. There’s that one quick flash of a motorbike in the pitch black driving at us toward the screen, which I initially took to signify Elizabeth and Sue’s consciousness swapping sides, but that doesn’t seem to be the case; because neither have memory of what the other one has done – Sue has no memory of Elizabeth cooking. or how she was feeling when she done it, and Elizabeth has no understanding of how Sue would conceive of stealing more days. Therefore, they’re not really one, and they can’t be alive at the same time 😕 I thought the movie was at its most intriguing the old man showed up, suggesting that because his younger side was so much fun, it made the older experience worse; the days got longer, and you felt more and more useless, where a depressive malaise and split personality could sink in. There’s a horror in that, but while the movie depicts it, through Elizabeth eating and staying inactive when she’s not Sue, the movie is truly not interested in exploring in that direction.
The movie is just about Sue not following the rules, and I’d been waiting for a wild sex scene – new body, new clothes, everything is tight, and young men are on the table again 👀 But if you took the Substance on a Friday night, and the transfer date is clearly marked on the calendar, then one does simply not get distracted on a Friday night. Especially in your second week – how ruddy dumb can you get? Sue, go out on a Wednesday, or a Saturday; biker boy gets his bones jumped a few days earlier, and everything is simple. One simply does not feed the Gremlins after midnight, and one does not skip transfer day on the Substance 😏 And if Egon tells you not to cross the streams, you don’t cross the streams – actually, that one is a little different 😄 But from here, it’s hard to emotionally invest in what happens to our girls. And then here come the plot holes – wouldn’t someone have a photo of a young Elizabeth Sparkle to compare with Sue? If Elizabeth can barely move her knee the second time Sue takes advantage of her marrow, how is she running in her most decrepit form? And for how extreme and visually captivating as the movie may be, it’s also not as unpredictable as it may seem at times; and so after Elizabeth and Sue reach their final form, I felt like the movie goes on and on and on. The movie’s depiction of men is also awful; to the point of insulting, I found, in some places. I just feel like it’s become so commonplace to include “a woman’s struggle in an objectifying dumb men’s patriarchy”, that movies feel like it no longer requires any thought to be passable. And when it’s displayed this sharply, it only leads me to ask what the women think of all this – didn’t Elizabeth see other women hit 50 before her and be tossed aside? Didn’t she plan or diversify for such a moment? Why is Sue so proud to get involved in the same vicious cycle? And proud to throw her older self under the bus? It’s a shame that Elizabeth wigged out comparing herself to Sue instead of going out on that date, because she looked fine. It seems that these women are just as obsessed with their vanity as the men, but I don’t know if they face the same scrutiny.
Ultimately, the movie never has the main characters remember that they are one. The Substance hotline must be so sick of them calling so they can tell them the same thing 😄 But maybe that’s the point – how the young should look after the old, and the old should look after the young. Well, if that is the intended message, then Elizabeth and Sue are not our heroes because they never do it once. But the Substance has remind me, out of leftfield, of the moral of Woody Allen’s movie, Midnight in Paris, which features a man dreaming he was born in the 1920s, and then, by movie magic, is transported back, only to find that all his idols wish they had been born another rich decade prior. It’s a message I always remember, to remind myself that everybody wants to be something they’re not, and you have to aim to make the most out of where you are in time. Midnight in Paris holds a lesson that Elizabeth and Sue should be wiser to learn 😤 No doubt this movie will find comparison to The Fly, and for good reason, but at least in that movie, the main character persevered with endeavour and agency (although ill-fated), and didn’t fail into chaos due to mere stupidity. For The Substance is a lot of flash – beautiful, and disgustingly beautiful – but a movie I would’ve enjoyed more without a frontal lobe.
2.5
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