The Substance (2024)
“Please give me a better version of myself”
The Substance is The Fly meets The Elephant Man in the Overlook Hotel as we all eat ourselves to death in pursuit of the fame we can’t fully appreciate à la Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige
I posted the above somewhat pithy brief review to my Twitter channel in the immediate aftermath of watching this incredible body horror shocker from French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat and director of 2017’s Revenge. I also began and concluded my brief take with the words “My Goodness” as well as wishing any readers of my post a cheery “Good Luck!” if they intended to watch this film as, well, they’re going to need it! My son certainly did as he joined me for my second viewing of the film in less than 24 hours and a film that whilst I could not be more effusive with my praise, my beautiful son could not hide his bashful and shy nature at the prolonged scenes of full on nudity before, with fully 30 minutes still remaining of this 141 minute film, shouted playfully “OH PLEASE MAKE IT STOP. I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!” When you reach the film’s denouement, perhaps you’ll have a similar reaction but trust me, you still haven’t seen anything yet! Which is of course a huge compliment to director Coralie Fargeat and should this film take off and find the huge audience it deserves, expect a slew of awards coming the way of the director (also credited for the screenplay as well as both editor and producer) British composer Raffertie for his spine shaking musical score, Benjamin Kracun for his pin sharp cinematography, the vast teams within both production and set design and particularly the sound department because whomever is credited with the sound design of this film deserves enormous, enormous kudos.
Even before we begin with what I hope will be an enticement to watch a film my son couldn’t wait to end…I don’t make the comparisons to Cronenberg’s The Fly or David Lynch’s Elephant Man lightly, nor the orange walled corridors of Kubrick’s The Shining, but I do hope I’m somewhat singularly on my own with an assertion that Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige plays a part here too with a creator unable to fully enjoy or appreciate their own creation. It’s a stretch but a good one I feel, as are the individual scenes that reminded me of a certain panic filled segment of Pulp Fiction, there’s also the repetitive nature of Groundhog Day and particularly the jolting close up use of an eyeball that conjured Darren Aronofsky’s depressingly beautiful masterpiece Requiem for a Dream. There’s also a short segment mid-film that reminded me of Aronofsky’s film from a quarter of a century ago. I noted too the obvious comparisons: to Alien, Jekyll and Hyde, Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Thing and Frankenstein. There are many, many more way in excess of my film and cinema knowledge.
All I’ll add further before we finally begin is The Substance has been on my mind since a very early morning first viewing, an eagerly awaited second viewing hours later with my horror film loving son, and it may well have usurped Dev Patel’s Monkey Man as my favourite film released and watched in this calendar year to date.
The Substance is in exalted company, even if my son couldn’t wait for it to end!
Here’s the opening 14 minutes:
The film opens with an overhead shot (the first of many) of an egg, before quickly a right gloved hand enters the screen from the left and injects a substance into the yellow yoke which quickly becomes two. Following a fade to black we see another overhead shot, this time of barely seen workers meticulously creating and crafting a Hollywood star for a tinseltown sidewalk, and in the name of “Elisabeth Sparkle”. A glitzy, camera bulb frenzy of the unveiling quickly ensues, followed by routine, everyday life in Hollywood sees the star age and wither over time, and with the overhead camera never moving, this aging process ends with a now cracked star covered in pickles and tomato sauce from a dropped hamburger, the residue crudely wiped away leaving an ugly red smear seeping into the star as the scene ends with a slow, close in zoom.
From an immediate cut we find “Elisabeth Sparkle” (Demi Moore) performing a vigorous aerobics dance routine for the television cameras (constantly referenced and seen) surrounding her and her dancing troop. After a successful taping of her show we follow Elisabeth through the corridors of a self contained world dedicated to her. Elisabeth’s pictures adorn every wall and we quickly discover that today is her birthday via a multitude of cheery greetings she receives on the way to the ladies restroom, a room closed and out of action and so out of necessity, Elisabeth reluctantly uses the men’s toilets opposite. No sooner has she entered the first cubicle and closed the door than “Harvey” (Dennis Quaid) loudly bursts through the main door and whilst urinating (and framed in an oddly extreme close in zoom) barks orders into a mobile telephone. “We need her to be young” he shouts and “We need her to be hot” before loudly finishing, zipping up his fly and exiting the toilet with yet more obnoxious and sexist remarks. The cubicle door now opens and slowly a clearly broken Elisabeth approaches the wash basin. There’s a mournful stare at the mirror above the basin, a close in zoom of running water swirling and disappearing down the plughole. Immediate cut to a simple frame and
“ELISABETH”
We now cut again to an extreme angled zoom of Harvey noisily and messily eating a bowl of prawns, each one consumed with an animalistic zeal as he thoughtlessly sums up the end of Elisabeth’s career before leaving a disgusting trail of half eaten seafood and a broken woman in his wake as he abruptly and awkwardly leaves the table. A straight on camera angle now shows a bewildered Elisabeth before a quick cut and zoom establishes the plight of a fly dying in a glass of whiskey. Now we see a bright Hollywood day shot from below, tall palm trees reaching into the sky (the first of many such shots in the film) before we’re inside a car with Elisabeth (shown exclusively via the car’s rear view mirror) until a full on facial shot shows our Hollywood star’s reaction to an overhead billboard for her show being unceremoniously ripped down before seconds later, a car spectacularly crashes into her at high speed.
Although miraculously surviving the collision without any lasting physical damage, Elisabeth is now seen with her back to the two doctors in her hospital room, almost refusing to turn around to greet the senior of the two men who can’t help but wish her a happy birthday or confirm his fandom for her. Before he awkwardly leaves, Elisabeth loudly sobs. Believing she’s now alone Elisabeth is startled when the junior of the two doctors begins to run his fingers down her spine, remarking that she’s “perfect” and somewhat in a whisper “you’re a great candidate”. A large blood bruise of some kind is obviously noticeable on the doctor’s hand and after he leaves the film cuts to Elisabeth now outside an oddly dystopian looking hospital building and reaching into her bright yellow coat pocket she’s surprised to find a small wrapped package, a USB flash drive entitled “The Substance” and a simple note — “This changed my life”.
Perplexed, Elisabeth is jolted back to reality by “Fred” (Edward Hamilton-Clark) an old school friend who can’t believe his luck or even to hide his awkward behaviour as he enthuses “you’re still the most beautiful girl in the whole world”. A stilted conversation ensues before Elisabeth agrees to accept Fred’s telephone number he scrawls on a scrap piece of paper before immediately dropping it into a muddy puddle replete with a discarded cigarette butt. The old school friends awkwardly wave their goodbyes.
We now cut to the first of many shots of a huge portrait of Elisabeth hanging centrally on the wall of her opulent apartment as, in the background, she stands with her back to camera staring out of a huge window and onto the city surrounding her. In the foreground are a bunch of red roses wrapped in cellophane with a note declaring “Thank you for all the years with us. You are amazing!”. Cut to a seething Elisabeth who inserts the USB drive into a television and an immediate question appears:
“Have you ever dreamed of a better version of yourself?”
and simple instructions amid other proclamations of “You are the Matrix” and “Everything comes from you” and that one single injection will produce two versions of Elisabeth and although she’ll replicate a much younger version of herself “You Are The One”.
She drops the USB drive into the kitchen bin.
As I hope I’ve conveyed above I adore this film but more than this I hope I’ve whetted your appetite to dive into this horribly brilliant extreme body horror. Juxtapositions abound: constant comparisons between the old and new of life, a drab and ugly world with a futuristic yet almost dystopian counterpart. There’s a life of everything and a darkened world of nothing. A war on oneself in a search of absolute perfection. A life of unreal celebrity against a real life of bleak nothingness. A bright and shiny facade on the ugly face of superficiality. A life of the excitement of everything or the despair of an empty life of nothing.
Above all The Substance is a remarkable film that I hope garners a huge audience that even for a horror movie snob such as myself impressed me greatly. It’s certainly not for everyone and not for the squeamish as the body horror is grim and grotesque way, way before the film enters its final act, and a final declaration of death and rebirth, rebirth and death of a host being sucked dry as the human body of capitalistic desire gorges on itself.
Horribly brilliant.
Highly recommended.
Thanks for reading. Here’s a link to volume one (of seven) in my “Essential Film Reviews Collection” as well as one of my nine self-published books you’ll also find on my Amazon page:
"The Essential Film Reviews Collection VOL.1" - link to Amazon
"Tales I Tell Myself" - link to Amazon
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.