9/10

The psychological weapon of capitalism is manufactured discontent, the rhetoric that continuously tells us that we need to buy things to live a satisfactory life. This rhetoric cannot stand on its own, however. It needs figureheads, idols of envy and practitioners of gluttony. Those people can’t hold the power of their own decision making, however. The idols need puppet masters, who benefit the most from continuous cycles of marketing, product evolution, and cultural formation. This is the struggle that surrounds The Substance, a story about a woman caught in the middle of this equation. A woman whose fame severs her connection from reality, and whose subjection to the whims of more powerful men sends her into a crisis of identity that drives the film’s narrative.

Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) has just been fired from her popular aerobics show because, according to network suit Harvey (Dennis Quaid), turning fifty means you’re out of style. Elisabeth, a woman whose body is subject to omnipresent scrutiny, sits in disgust as Harvey fires her in between slurping down multiple bowls of shrimp, his messy teeth and lips echoing unnaturally. This is the establishing of Coralie Fargeat’s sensory texture, a characteristic that also defined her debut Revenge. It is a texture achieved through stark contrasts of sound and image, intrigue and danger, horror and comedy, triumph and tragedy.

The Substance is a fairly simpleminded movie, and while I’ve seen some criticism of this, the strong topical focus is what allows the film to continuously escalate. The tension between the public and private self, the manufactured image and the true existence, and the spiritual cost of fame and prestige weigh on Fargeat’s story. The titular substance, a black market drug that allows Elisabeth to birth a younger, more appealing body which she can inhabit for seven days at a time, has a fascinating language surrounding it. A disembodied voice reminds Elisabeth that the substance is an ultimate form of control, a way to embody the best version of yourself, but always reminding her that “You can’t escape from yourself.”

From here the film takes on a whiplashing tonal back and forth, the two characters’ symbiosis going sour as the weeks pass. Sue (Margaret Qualley), Elisabeth’s double, quickly pursues Elisabeth’s old job. Qualley dominates the frame with a determined demeanor that’s comedically antagonized as she continuously pushes her luck before the chickens come home to roost. The second act is a gutbuster of black comedy, frightening but sarcastic body horror, and a vibrant editing style. Elisabeth, meanwhile, becomes sullen and disparaging. Being Sue isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and the voices’ urgings to “remember that you are one” don’t stick when Sue’s recklessness leads to further denigration of Elisabeth’s body and self-efficacy.

A riotous confrontation between the two leads to a third act where I wasn’t sure how to make heads or tails of it. That same sense of comedic and grotesque escalation is still there, but the film rushes through four or five perfect final shots and just keeps going. Some of that overstaying ends up delivering very satisfying moments, though. A monstrous performance featuring floods of blood and a more impressionistic moment with our characters takes the film to its real ending, a perfectly cruel final image cementing this as one of my favorite theater experiences in a long time.