‘Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself?’
The Substance is a 2024 horror drama film about a fading celebrity who uses a black-market drug to create a younger version of herself.
Written, directed and co-produced by Coralie Fargeat (Revenge, 2017) wrote and directed The Substance. Co-produced by Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner.
The Blacksmith Pictures-Universal Pictures-Working Title Films co-production stars Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid, Joseph Balderrama, Hugo Diego Garcia, Oscar Lesage and Olivier Raynal.
Buy The Substance on HD digital from Amazon.com
Plot:
Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), a former A-lister past her prime is suddenly fired from her fitness TV show by repellent studio head Harvey (Dennis Quaid). She is drawn to the opportunity presented by a mysterious new drug: The Substance.
All it takes is one injection and she is reborn – temporarily – as the gorgeous, twenty-something Sue (Margaret Qualley).
The only rule? Time needs to be split: exactly one week in one body, then one week in the other. No exceptions. A perfect balance. What could go wrong?
External reviews:
“Some may take issue with its heavy-handed messaging but this film isn’t shooting for subtlety. Everything about it is intentionally overt for maximum entertainment. Whether it’s the visceral sound design of Dennis Quaid eating shrimp, the throbbing score by Raffertie or the sexified cinematography of Benjamin Kracun – everything is executed with tenacious flair that’s designed to grab your attention – even if editors Jerome Eltabet, Valentin Féron and Fargeat herself could have use a snip here and there.” Awards Watch
“it’s the sense of humor that surprises most. Fargeat is having a blast lambasting Hollywood’s skittishness around aging, pointing out the absurdity of it all at every turn. It yields a new camp horror classic, bold in its approach and delightfully deranged. It’s as funny as it is revolting, existing in a heightened sense of reality that’s as hypnotic as off-putting. Fargeat helms with assured confidence, delivering a tactile visual feast for the senses.” ★★★★½ Bloody Disgusting
“It’s a little overlong at 140 minutes, but it does quite enjoyably prolong the agony as one begins to wonder what the human cost of all this will eventually turn out to be. Fargeat rewards your patience with a finale that channels the pathos of Lynch’s Elephant Man and the fleshy absurdity of Brian Yuzna’s 1989 squishy cult classic Society. Squeamish viewers should steer clear… Deadline
“There are too many useless shots that do not need to be in the film (that do not help the story progress) and I’m surprised no one told her this while editing. The story is powerful enough with a totally awesome performance from Demi Moore, who has to do way, way more than in this than just pine for her younger self and look beautiful. The finale is also absolutely bonkers, and I do mean that as a compliment.” First Showing
” …the movie is ridiculous and a bit redundant towards the drawn-out end, but Moore savours the postmodern horror of her situation. In its trashiness – and, yes, its refusal of serious substance – The Substance should really be put out on VHS cassettes and watched at home in homage to the great era of home entertainment pulp and video-store masterpieces of weirdness and crassness […] Fargeat delivers some shocks.” The Guardian
“You could criticize “The Substance” as having little that’s new. The deferred-aging premise is at least as old as “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” and the body-horror effects owe a lot to David Cronenberg […] But “The Substance” has its own way of handling psychology and metaphor. (The menstrual analogies—the calendaring of the body swaps, the ill-timed bouts of bleeding—are manifold.)” RogerEbert.com
“The finale ultimately turns the aged female body grotesque and monstrous, which, although genre tradition, strikes especially hollow here, under the cloud of all the far more memorable and, indeed, thematically richer films from which this one continually borrows. And if Fargeat hopes to condemn any institution or social framework, we, too, are denied the pleasure of seeing women as anything more than what they represent for those forces.” Sight & Sound
“The Substance is also an unwieldy movie-movie that desperately needs to come up for air at some point. To borrow a Cronenbergian metaphor, things keep growing out of this film, and Fargeat’s cinema fever is sometimes at odds with her powerful take on two women, sisters of sorts, who feel as if they need to destroy each other in order to matter […] But it’s impossible to deny that Fargeat’s film holds you even at its most frenzied, and it ends on an unforgettable image… Slant
Buy The Substance on HD digital from Amazon.com
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