The Substance

 It's possible to use satire subtly. It's not all that common, especially in movies- after all, even when they go over the top, people still take them at face value. I have some sympathy for this: we should never forget media literacy is a skill, and that many people don't consume enough fiction to develop it.

 Still - I do wonder if there's someone, somewhere, who could mistake writer/director (and editor, and producer) Coralie Fargeat's The Substance for... I don't know, a feminist cautionary tale about science run amuck or a particularly unpleasant body horror film.

 It is pretty much at the opposite end of the galaxy from subtle, is what I'm saying. And damn if it isn't entertaining.

 Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore)'s star is falling. That's made hilariously clear in a brilliant (and brilliantly unsubtle) montage where her star for the Hollywood Walk of Fame is first built (in a gorgeously extended, very procedural scene), then admired, then forgotten, ending in a scene where a guy drops a very sloppy burger on top of it.

 She's now fifty, and as we catch up with her she's being callously fired from her long-running aerobics TV show by an exec played with sick, sick relish by Dennis Quaid. This leaves her in a tailspin which I think any of us can relate to, even if we don't have her financial stability, and will never be as gorgeous as she is at 50. (Or as Moore is at 60, while we're at it).

 And then someone passes her a USB stick with an ad for an enigmatic product called "The Substance" - the marketing campaign sits somewhere between a body spray ad and the latest promo for some overrated techbro's latest scam. It's accompanied by a note saying "It changed my life".

 At first Elizabeth rightly scoffs, but after a series of insults and degradations she caves in to curiosity and manages to get a hold of the product itself. It's a series of vials, injectors and other medical-looking paraphernalia boxed carefully with enigmatic instructions to follow. All printed in a large, bold letters. It goes well with the techbro vibe from the commercial - it looks like a high-end consumer electronics product; Wonder if that's how beauty products are marketed these days.

 In any case, Elizabeth not only easily works out what to do from the instructions, she also shoots herself full of needles with the ease of an inveterate junkie. And lo and behold, after some unpleasantness, out of a long crevice that opens on her back pops out a younger woman who will later call herself Sue (Margaret Qualley). She's everything Elizabeth feels the world wants out of her / everything she would like to have again; Young, curvy, unattainably beautiful. At first I thought there was some sort of conscience transfer involved, but no, it soon becomes clear they're two separate people.

 The science is ridiculous on its face (conservation of mass can bite it!) but it's a neat and well thought out concept with its own internal logic. Even if they have two different bodies, Sue and Elizabeth have to time share their lives for a week at a time; As the instructions keep telling them, they are the same person. So when Sue goes out and starts conquering Hollywood - by... um, taking over Elizabeth's old show, Elizabeth spends that time unconscious in the bathroom floor, and viceversa.

At first Elizabeth lives Sue's life vicariously through TV tapings and billboards. But the rot soon sets in, and they both start resenting the time the other woman takes up in their life. And thanks to some slight misuses of The Substance, that rot is pretty quickly made manifest. Thigs go downhill quickly. And spectacularly.

 Coralie Fargeat made an impression with her excellent Revenge - an, um, rape/revenge genre exercise that was actually fun and included loads of uncommonly cool visuals and poetic, almost avant-garde flourishes. This, her follow-up, confirms her as a ferociously talented, inventive writer and director. There are so many incredible scenes, clever transitions, and great visual gags and callbacks.

 It's not just immaculately crafted, but very carefully put together; The sort of movie where, if, say, a finger gets hideously mutated due to The Substance abuse, you can bet your ass it's going to crassly feature the deformed appendage in as many extreme close-ups as the film can squeeze in. And I don't think a chapter title card has made me laugh so hard since Aniara. It's all portrayed with gooey, convincing, disgusting effects - most of them practical, and an outstanding sound design that prioritizes all the gross sounds our bodies make. I imagine the Foley artist had a lot of fun recording some of these.

 And Moore and Qualley are incredible, both in pretty ballsy roles. Might be a bit cliché to call their performances fearless, but that's pretty much what they are. Moore in particular really goes for it in a role that runs the gamut from brittle self-loathing to all-out evil hag. 

 I don't want to oversell it. In many ways, it's a bit of a misfire; For one, it's extremely bloated. Even if you count its excess as part of the joke (it absolutely is) that doesn't make the experience of watching its slow parts any better. And if you don't like blunt symbolism... well, you might hate it. I got onboard pretty quickly, but even then a couple of over-the-top conceits made me cringe, and not in a good, body-horror "oh my god don't put that needle there" way.

 But it's not like its messaging is all that simple either. I mean, some of it is - Take Quaid's sleazeball, one-note executive - the guy is so over the top he could basically be a villain in one of the Schumacher Batmans, one whose power is being overbearingly entitled/chauvinistic/etc.

 And then the film delights in both Sue and Elizabeth behaving horribly, and the obligatory 'Can't you just smile?' joke here is hilariously anti-intuitive.

 Don't get me wrong; It's feminist and angry as fuck. Both women are shaped by the people and the industry around them, and their antics are ultimately tragic. But if that's the message, that's not what the film focuses on, instead providing a cavalcade of Cronenbergian horrors, bleak jokes and enough bloodshed to unseat Project: Wolf Hunting in the "most gallons of fake blood spilt" sweepstakes.

 The script also doesn't give a flying fuck about plausibility, but that's honestly a tiny concern, since things are clearly heightened to ridiculous levels from the get-go. Crowds form mobs with the ease of a Simpsons or Spongebob Squarepants cartoon, morning gym shows throw shapely asses at our face like the tackiest of hiphop videos and catapult their star into being America's sweetheart in a couple short months, and most men behave like Tex Avery cartoon wolves.

 Finally, it's a pretty disgusting movie. But if you read this blog then you're probably on-board with that. My problem, ironically, is that the ending's outrageousness had been a bit over-sold to me by a friend - so I found it underwhelming when compared to... I dunno, Society or Men. But it's still a good one. It made me laugh.

 I think I prefer Revenge's simpler pleasures to this movie's all-maximalist-all-the-time approach. But it's quickly growing on me, not the least because of the near-inexhaustible levels of enthusiasm and inventiveness Fargeat shows behind the cameras; I can't wait to see where she heads next.