How Far Would You Go for the Substance?

So, I showed The Substance to Joey today.  I'd reviewed it for an online mag a couple months ago.  Here's my unedited review before the editor modified it to his liking.  Enjoy, and sound off.

     '95’s Showgirls asked, how far are you willing to stay on top.  What's the significance of this?  It was Elizabeth Berkley's breakout/away role from her goody-too-shoes Jesse Spano role in Saved By the Bell to prove she was an adult actress.  Was it meant to titillate and be every Saved By the Bell fanboy (and girl's) masturbatory dream, hell yeah, but the deeper meaning was, like Berkley, how far is someone willing to go to stay on top, yo stay relevant. Fast forward 2024 to writer/director Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, which is released September 20^th by Blacksmith and Working Title Films, starring Demi Moore (Striptease, GI Jane), Margaret Qualley (Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood, Kinds of Kindness), and Dennis Quaid (The Day After Tomorrow, Reagan).

A fading celebrity (Moore) decides to use a black-market drug, a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself (Qualley).  If you follow the instructions, what could go wrong?

     It’s been well documented by actresses at large, but specifically in Hollywood, that age means “has been” and that in order to stay relevant, these actresses feel like they need body modifications to compete with the younger gen coming up, so the social commentary in The Substance is brilliant.  Moore, at 61, who’s been a steady working actress, but hasn’t been in many big budget movies since 2003’s Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, which she told Michelle Yeoh for Interview magazine of the bikini scene, “What’s interesting is I felt [criticism] more when I hit my 40s. I had done Charlie’s Angels, and there was a lot of conversation around this scene in a bikini, and it was all very heightened, a lot of talk about how I looked,”

Continuing in the same interview, “And then I found that there didn’t seem to be a place for me. I didn’t feel like I didn’t belong. It’s more like I felt that feeling of, I’m not 20, I’m not 30, but I wasn’t yet what they perceived as a mother,” has been in headlines with updates on her ex-husband, actor Bruce Willis, who has been diagnosed with debilitating Frontotemporal Dementia, was perfect for the role, and should be up for awards when the season comes around.

In a New York Times interview, Moore said of her character, Elisabeth, it's because "I don’t feel I am her."

"This is a woman who has no family — she’s dedicated her entire life to her career, and when that’s taken, what does she have?" Moore said. "And so, in a way, I had enough separation from her, and at the same time, a deep, internal connection to the pain that she was experiencing, the rejection that she felt. I knew it would be challenging, but potentially a really important exploration of the issue."

The "issue" of "what we do to ourselves" and "the violence we have against ourselves." "The lack of love and self-acceptance, and that within the story, we have this male perspective of the idealized woman that I feel we as women have bought into."

About the nudity in the film, Moore said in the same interview, “Going into this, I knew this is not about me looking great, and in fact there was a certain liberation in the role that wasn’t having to be perfect," she said. "It’s not that there aren’t shots in it where I go, 'Ugh, my ass looks awful' [laughs], but I’m also OK with it. Part of what was interesting is that Elisabeth is being rejected, and it’s not that I look that bad."

Furthermore, speaking about the vulnerability going into the role, Moore said, “Going into it, it was really spelled out — the level of vulnerability and rawness that was really required to tell the story. And it was a very vulnerable experience and just required a lot of sensitivity and a lot of conversation about what we were trying to accomplish.”

During a Cannes presser, Moore said of her younger doppelganger actress, Margaret Qualley, “I had someone who was a great partner, who I felt very safe with. We obviously were quite close in certain moments – naked – it allowed us also a lot of levity in these moments at how absurd some of these moments were, with us laying on the tile floor. Ultimately, it’s just about I think really direct and clear communication and mutual trust.”

The Substance is billed as a horror comedy.  Horror, definitely, specifically body and psychological horror.  Comedy’s debatable.  The cinematography by Benjamin Kracun (Beast, Promising Young Woman) could be construed as comedic, but comes off as creepy and can be claustrophobic with extreme zooms and close-ups and choppy cut scenes complete with swishing sound effects, specifically in dialogue sequences.  There’s a gross extreme close-up of Dennis Quaid’s Harvey, Moore’s Elizabeth and then Qualley’s Sue’s smarmy agent, eating crawfish while chatting up/essentially dismissing Elizabeth.

Speaking of Harvey, Dennis Quaid wasn’t the first choice for the role, it was Ray Liotta (Field of Dreams, Hannibal), but he died May of ’22 soon after being cast.  Not that Quaid is a slouch in the character, just curiosity kills the cat what Liotta would’ve done with it with his brand of smarmy zaniness he could tap into like, say, Goodfellas.

Earlier I brought up The Substance’s body horror was alluded to.  Let’s expound on that, shall we?  The body horror would make David Cronenberg, the Father of Body Horror in film, proud.  If you’ve since the teaser poster, you get an idea with Demi Moore’s stitched up back lying on the bathroom floor, which’s the aftermath of taking the Substance, which is an exclusive treatment received in a personal mailbox, and the younger doppelganger comes out, who has complete autonomy from the host...except that the doppelganger has to get a “charge” every day, and the hist and doppelganger have to change places every seven.  Keep in mind both have complete autonomy.

On the psychological horror side, from the beginning, it can be seen how everybody wishing Elisabeth happy birthday affects her as she dips into a bathroom after we open on her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame being placed and age with people walking on it, dropping stuff on it, barely trying to clean up…disregarded.

Autonomy is the freedom from external control or influence; independence.  Autonomy’s a slippery slope depending on the person’s disposition…especially when fame’s concerned.  Sue’s a wild card, and Elisabeth doesn't want to give up what she had, so...

Joey wondered in the end if anybody'd used the Substance correctly, or if was designed to bring out the worst in people.

Given that, The Substance and The Substance is a double entendre: one being the liquid injected to make the new person, and the other being how Elisabeth and Sue deal as one "ages out of fame", and how the other gains fame...and wants to keep it.

How far are you willing to go?  We give The Substance 5 of 5 stars.