The Substance (2024) – Film Review

Director: Coralie Fargeat
Cast: Margaret Qualley, Demi Moore, Dennis Quaid
Certificate: 18

By David Reid

This film has been much discussed in advance of release, boosted by the award of a Palme D’Or for French writer/director Coralie Fargeat’s screenplay. The mainstream media coverage, to date, has mainly centred on Demi Moore’s lead role, seen as a comeback, in movie career terms.

For context, Demi Moore was originally part of the Brat Pack youth-centred coming of age films, in the 1980s, before becoming a lead actress, in her own right, of a number of blockbuster movies, during the ensuing decade, including Ghost, A Few Good Men, Indecent Proposal and Disclosure, to name a few. For Striptease, she reportedly secured the highest fee for a lead Hollywood actress, at that time. She was also famed for posing naked for a Vanity Fair cover – not once, but twice. If any actress can lead a movie about the state of play for female high-profile roles on our screens, surely no one has better credentials.

Here Demi Moore is Elisabeth Sparkle, an ageing presenter of a major TV network primetime fitness workout show. She quickly learns that the network is looking to replace her with a younger woman. Shaken to her core, Elisabeth is driven to try a serum which creates a younger version of herself, named Sue, played by Margaret Qualley. It is made clear to the viewer that there is no great dilemma for Ms Sparkle, as she feels compelled to continue life in the limelight to which she has become accustomed. In order to gain use of the drug, she is forced, through a series of cloak and dagger male conversations, to step through a grimy portal, into this new world.

“Many references”

The process of creating Sue is reminiscent of David Cronenberg’s The Fly and Ridley Scott’s Alien, as the sci-fi aspect of the film, like Sue, springs to life. The film’s B-movie credentials perhaps enable, or even require, not all of the issues and questions regarding the practicalities, or full context, of the treatment to be explained. The dialogue is pared down to the bare essentials – and only two characters are given surnames. It is almost as though the director is telling us that to add fuller detail would be mere frippery, which could detract from the intended purpose of the piece.

Both actresses give their all to these roles, which includes physically baring all. This may seem strange, for a movie with a feminist message, but, for this reviewer, the nudity never feels gratuitous. For Margaret Qualley, this role tops a strong body of movie work – and a mesmerising performance as the lead, in Netflix’s Maid.

Sue replaces Elisabeth in the show. Here the cinematography utilises the trademark camera angles of the glamour industry to focus upon Sue’s physical attributes, often in carefully posed shots, as she wears little to no clothing. The fact that Margret Qualley’s mother, in real-life, is the model and actress, Andie MacDowell, could incline us to view her role here, to an extent, as art imitating life.

As part of the process, the two leads must switch their respective conscious and unconscious states of being every seven weeks. They are both part of the same person – and consequently interdependent. This lays the groundwork for a Faustian pact, which is, in essence, an All About Eve cautionary tale.

However, it is so, so, much more than that. This movie does have substance, in abundance. There are many references, drawn from literature and film, which indicate that the director is clear about the genre in which it sits – and its place within it. These include Shelley’s Frankenstein; Kafka’s The Metamorphosis; Hitchcock’s Psycho; Kubrick’s The Shining; Lynch’s The Elephant Man; Wachowski’s The Matrix; Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman. The antidote scene in Pulp Fiction is reprised more than once, almost shot by shot. This is a movie which loves cinema, in particular – and acknowledges its debt to past works.

“Monstrous vision”

Dennis Quaid plays Elisabeth and Sue’s boss in a grotesque characterisation of a TV network manager. The close-up shots of his snarling representation of management machismo are as memorable, as they are obnoxious, in each scene he features.

Although there are a number of male characters, they are represented as bullying or simmering and silent, almost Dickensian in their nature. Yet, this is no Victorian comedy. As events spiral out of control, the audience are taken on a rollercoaster by the push and pull of the lead characters, as they fight for survival in a male-dominated world.

Of particular note are the special effects deployed to accentuate the ugliness of the monstrous vision of the director, on the screen before us. This is a statement movie, holding up a mirror for us to see what men, or society, or both have created. There is no subtlety, as every sinew – especially of the two leads – is strained to emphasise the point, sometimes vividly and overwhelmingly so, as the movie reaches a dramatic conclusion.

In a year of the unsettling psychological thriller, we think of Longlegs; Blink Twice; and Speak No Evil, with the Joker sequel to come, this movie stands out, both as a piece of art its own right; and as a staging post in the evolution of the #Me Too movement. It is a film which is hard to love, but one which can be appreciated and admired on its own terms.