Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley's 'The Substance' Takes Body Horror to Glittery, Grotesque Heights

By Lindsay Traves | Film | September 20, 2024 |

By Lindsay Traves | Film | September 20, 2024 |

Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself? That question is the crux of Coralie Fargeat’s glittery pink body horror thrill. Forcing women to resort to anything to stay young and beautiful, even if it means sharing life with unstable avatars, is barely a metaphor for the reality of the endless cosmetic procedures and early retirements many of the gender takes on. Tapping into the pressure to stay young and beautiful, The Substance becomes a gonzo gory gross out piece about doing whatever it takes.

Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is the queen of daytime television workout videos. Her lustrous career is implied by her star on the walk of fame and the ramblings of her show’s producer (Dennis Quaid). And despite her near-perfect appearance, Sparkle is aging, her fiftieth birthday being the agent of doom that loses her the lustrous gig. Desperate to stay relevant, she takes the chance on a mysterious and exclusive drug - the substance - which promises to give her a better self. The rules are clear, use the activator once, maintain every day, and switch places with the younger double every seven days, no exceptions. After injecting herself with a hot green substance right out of Re-Animator (brat summer), Elisabeth cracks in half and births her younger, more beautiful, perfect second self who calls herself Sue (Margaret Qualley). With Sue taking over Sparkle’s old gig, the two enjoy short-lived harmony until they struggle to find balance, their wants veering off course with Sue wanting to live unfettered and Sparkle unwilling to give up being ageless.

The metaphors are thinly veiled; we want eternal youth and are pressured into it by a society that devalues aging women, especially in the entertainment industry. Women line up for “salmon sperm facials,” inject themselves with fillers and neuromodulators, and Moore herself was once the talk of the tabloids for the work she had done to appear in a bikini in 2003’s Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. The Substance is exploring that, often with a lack of faith in its audience that is too overt in its explanations of the themes. Sparkle is desperate enough to use a strange substance given to her in a weird locker (reminiscent of the silicon parties of the 90s), and even when it causes her to deteriorate and have to give up everything in her own personal life, it’s worth it for her to have an avatar that remains young, beautiful, and in the warmth of the spotlight her true self was kicked out of. There’s also perhaps a read that there is an element of motherhood being explored here, with Sue being birthed from inside Sparkle and immediately slowing her down and taking from her in a way that forces her to sacrifice parts of herself in favor of her younger offspring.

The special part of The Substance is its craft, making magic out of sight and sound. Firstly, the body horror gore is framed by the film’s bright colors that never take blood red in favor of metallic pinks. Not just the lead’s name, the film truly sparkles with close ups of shiny tight costumes, sparkly eyes, and wet-look lip gloss. Things mostly take place during the day, and only veer into equally bright but darker tones when an aging Sparkle begins to lose herself and it feels like homage to Requiem for a Dream. Fargeat’s camera is so unafraid of the female body, showing its angles in various states of use, from intentional posing to being laid limp. It never feels voyeuristic until it’s being looked at through the eyes of characters which causes Sue and Sparkle to wince. For me, the standout is the art design of the substance itself, the block letters, vacuum sealed bags, and different styles of injectables all make for a weird and wild titular object that I’d love to have seen conceptualized. It’s crafty, and the absurdity of the device adds to the story element that perhaps Sparkle would be more likely to trust a flashy looking drug than whatever else she would have found in the mysterious alley closet. Further, the performances are wild, especially as the actors are often forced before fisheye lenses and American Psycho style tight shots, reminding us why Demi Moore is such a decorated actress and why Qualley has become such a staple in complex roles.

The Substance feels sometimes lost in its own premise, beating the audience over the head with the metaphor, but it finds its footing in its final demented Cinderella story act. Throwing away any remaining subtlety, it nods to grotesque cohorts like Society before the curtain falls. Fargeat’s story is a visual one, the two lead women having limited dialogue (the two of them having almost no opportunity to converse with each other) and mostly reacting to the nightmares that surround them. The Substance is a bright pink gross out spectacle of body horror craft that’ll forever change the way you look at a certain popular appendage.

The Substance had its North American premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. It hits theaters September 20, 2024