Dozens of riffs on David Cronenberg’s body horror classics — “Videodrome,” “The Fly” and “Naked Lunch” — are released at festivals every year, but rarely do any make as big a splash as French director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance,” winner of the best screenplay award at Cannes, and the gnarliest film in theaters this year. It ravages the remains of its genre and builds to new extremes. Each moment joyfully bashes you over the head. It is a disgusting maximalist nightmare. “The Substance” is a sledgehammer.
In broad strokes, the film explores the struggle against aging in Hollywood by its main character Elisabeth Sparkle, portrayed by the stellar Demi Moore. After being canned by her hilariously devilish boss, played by Dennis Quaid, she begins using an experimental chemical that releases a better version of herself, played by Margaret Qualley. Each member of this unholy trinity brings their absolute A-game, but Dennis Quaid steals the show with each line. Woefully, he will most likely garner more attention for his performance in the appalling “Reagan,” but any of the members of “Reagan’s” target audience would have a heart attack upon viewing “The Substance.”
Paramount to any film’s effectiveness is its visual language, and “The Substance” delivers in spades. Director of Photography Benjamin Kracun delivers some of the most creative, original and exciting cinematography of the year. He photographs the grotesqueries on display with a perfect concoction of artistry and good old-fashioned shock and awe. The editing team of Jerome Eltabet, Valentin Feron and director Coralie Fargeat have cut the film in a way that it is paradoxically readable and intangible, bouncing back and forth between the two with a frenetic psychosis. It is something to behold, especially paired with composer Raffertie’s show-stopping industrial score, which ties each of the film’s parts into a fantastic whole, all culminating in what is the biggest, loudest and craziest final act of the year.
While firmly operating in pulp territory, “The Substance” explores its themes of the male gaze, the mistreatment of women in show business and our culture of media-induced insecurity with all the subtlety of a car crash. In a positive way, the fury of its message comes across through all of its formal idiosyncrasies. While already being a compositional tour de force, the power of its images expresses that anxiety of the world passing you by and people looking right through the watcher from minute one to the very end. It is thoughtful in a way that lends itself to both the goofy fun of its premise, and earnest social criticism.
Films that excel in even one of these aspects are rare, so it is a true miracle that “The Substance” is so fun, so disgusting, so smart and so entertaining. Proclaiming that “you are not ready” for a film, book, record, video game, etc. is a trope that rarely lives up to its usage but “The Substance” is something else. This, however, is not a blanket recommendation. Audiences that are in any way squeamish, prudish or easily sickened, should steer clear but any intrigued by the freakish delirium described above will not find a better film in theaters.
