Rating: 3.5/5
Hoop-Tober | 19/31 | Countries 4/5 | France
Paul Verhoeven’s Requiem for a Dream? Brian Yuzna’s Sunset Blvd.? A third thing I can’t think of right now?
Oscar winner Elisabeth Sparkle once shined brightly in Hollywood. But, like so many women in the industry, her star faded as she aged. Now, at age 50, she’s pulling a Jane Fonda and doing workout videos while hanging on by a thread. After a serious car accident, a nurse surreptitiously gives her a thumb drive with the words “The Substance” on it and a phone number on the back.
Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself — younger, more beautiful, more perfect? One single injection unlocks your DNA, starting a new cellular division that will release another version of yourself. This is… THE SUBSTANCE.
If you’ve seen Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge, you know how she works within genre conventions. The internet has completely butchered the concept of the “male gaze,” but Fargeat is a director who knows how to speak in it to subvert it.
Despite my issues regarding gender identity, I’ve never been a woman, let alone one in the entertainment industry. But one arena I’m intimately familiar with and can speak to is self-hatred. And that’s where this movie hits for me. I’m too sleepy to expand on that, so take my word for it, please.
I’m angry at the movie for using Bernard Hermann’s The Nightmare and Dawn from Vertigo in the score, but at the same time, it worked on me.
I’m just happy to live in a world where a film so visceral and bizarre is getting enough critical attention that people in my family will know about it. Also, I never thought I would see Demi Moore in something like this.
Anyone looking for subtlety will be disappointed. This movie is an absurdist nightmare.