The Substance
Have you ever heard the term “Body Horror” ?
When my friend Alaina told me about a new movie she saw and used that term I was unaware of both the genre and the film. However, when I saw The Substance a week later I knew exactly what she meant…
The substance is one of the nastiest movies I’ve ever seen and I also totalllllly think it should win best picture at this years Oscars. If you haven’t had the delightfully gut churning experience of seeing this movie yet, think of it as a black mirror episode with a sense of humor and a flair for human body parts.
The substance follows an aging star in Hollywood who takes a black market drug to become younger and bites off more than she can chew with the side effects… When her younger self doesn’t want to share nicely and the effects have medical implications things start to get, well how do I say, *bodily*…
I’m going to be totally honest I’ve seen almost nothing Demi Moore has been in. Ghost was apparently a big deal? Never heard of it. A few good men was great but I haven’t seen it in years and can only remember “you can’t handle the truth” at this point. My lack of knowledge only provided further delight for her performance as it blew the hinges off of my brain.
Her poised yet anxious demeanor as an aging star played against the back drop of monochromatic never ending hallway in the opening let me know I was in for a fun ride. I love nothing more than a movie with lots of style and this movie was serving heaping portions. Dennis Quaid charges the films batteries from the jump with his grimy agent act as he disgustingly shovels shrimp into his gullet while telling Demi’s character “ Elizabeth Sparkle” that she’s been booted from the empire she created.
On her way home, sparkle gets into my favorite car crash scene in any movie I’ve ever seen. Then while at the hospital she gets pitched on some black market answer to her problems by a brutally attractive male nurse half her age. Things really get fun as the black mirror aspects of the film come to life. I particularly loved the electronic scoring and sound design as well as the sparse black and white sets related to the black market world. It created a very fun sci fi element that really made things exciting and unpredictable.
When the drugs take effect and the transformation begins the film takes on it’s horror angle and we watch a modern Frankenstein birth that the Saw movies would be proud of. From here Margaret Qaulley takes the spotlight as “Sue” and gives a knockout performance as a cut throat glitter queen.
The plot then follows the two versions of Sparkle as they wrestle back and forth for dominance and the black market tech ominously reminds them both that they “are one”. Both Qaulley and Moore give phenomenal performances that thread the needle of being both campy and heartfelt as the film further distorts reality and turns to horror.
In the third act, the effects of the younger Sue’s greed, and the older Sparkle’s Envy deteriorate both their relationship and the physical boundaries of their sci-fi teather until things become murderous. Demi Moore gives the performance of the year in a monologue where she admits her hate for herself and touches on the core themes of the film as she tries to physically murder Sue. From here the Gore, mutilation, and disfigurement rise exponentially as the black market drugs warnings are disregarded. We fully arrive in the land of a sci fi that has become both tragedy and black comedy.
The film ends with a gore fest of hilarious proportion that made me physically speak out loud to the stranger next to me (something I’ve never done in a movie).
My takeaway:
I usually don’t enjoy dark material, especially when it’s excessive and gratuitous. But as my pick for best picture, I guess this was the exception. Through the crazy and heavy handed metaphorical gestures I saw a very needed message in the movie. The film says so much about aging in Hollywood as a woman and how women are treated in society versus men in regards to aging. I also found a potent personal story of a woman and her relationship to herself. If this film was a straight forward drama I don’t think I would have been able to feel that message on the level I did. And that to me is cinema at it’s highest. A story where realism takes a back seat to spectacle that makes your experience both exhilaratingly unrealistic and yet somehow truthful.
I think this movie should win best picture and I think Demi Moore should win best actor. Because let’s be honest she got snubbed for her performance in the “Bevis and Butthead do America” movie.