When a Body Meets a Body: “The Substance”

 When an actress’s performance is described as brave, the implication is that she takes all her clothes off. This being so, Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley are two of the bravest actresses in Hollywood. In The Substance, both Qualley (age 30) and Moore (now 62) spend a great deal of time in the altogether. In terms of face and figure, they’re both genuinely gorgeous. But this film about body shaming draws sharp distinctions between the way the world treats young women and those, however toned and chiseled, who are old enough to be their mothers.

 Moore plays an award-winning actress, Elisabeth Sparkle, who’s been reduced to hosting a perky TV exercise show. Though she has legions of fans, management (a thoroughly obnoxious Dennis Quaid) decrees that a younger, hipper personality is now required to front the show. So she’s sent off into retirement with only a gift cookbook to keep her company. But wait! She suddenly discovers there’s a mysterious new under-the-counter anti-ageing regime that will return her to past glories by re-arranging her DNA and spitting out a younger version of herself.  The catch is that she must alternate with her new persona: one week on; one week off. When the young and adorable Sue (Qualley) is ascendant, Elisabeth lies comatose on the floor of her swanky apartment, nude and discarded. Needless to say, the arrangement is not ideal, especially when Sue—living her best life—turns out not to be great at keeping her end of the bargain.

 The Substance is the work of a Frenchwoman named Coralie Fargeat, who wrote, produced, directed, and edited this, her second film. Remarkably, it won her the Best Screenplay award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Certainly, The Substance has a terrific premise, and a satirical film about the public and private reactions to women’s bodies certainly fits in with today’s big issues. But for me what stands out about The Substance is its gloriously askew cinematography. A fish-eye lens makes Dennis Quaid’s odious honcho look as grotesque as he is. Elisabeth, cringing from the age-lines she sees in her own face, is reflected in everything from mirrors to her apartment’s brass doorknob. The taut boobs and buns of Sue and her youthful hangers-on are given their own close-ups. SoCal’s ubiquitous palm trees loom over the piece like lethal weapons.

 Special kudos to whoever dreamed up the film’s opening sequence, in which (using time-lapse photography) Elisabeth Sparkle’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is created, buffed, admired, ignored, and finally splattered with the spilled lunch of an indifferent passer-by.

 But for me the film’s 141-minute length hints at a major problem. This is ultimately a horror film, and horror films tend to run out of steam after a while. Fargeat, having neatly set up a darkly ironic situation, feels the need to descend into blood and gore. Lots and lots of gore. By the midpoint, I was wondering where this film was going. By the end, following what seemed like an interminable bloodfest, I was relieved it was over. The two actresses certainly proved to be game, and I foresee an Oscar nomination for makeup design, but, for me at least, whatever point the film was making had wholly gotten lost in the shuffle.

 Certainly, the idea of holding onto one’s beauty by any means necessary is a poignant one. Demi Moore, in particular, would know something about that struggle from her own life. My mentor, Roger Corman, explored the idea back in 1959 with The Wasp Woman. It’s a great little horror flick, and it’s only 69 minutes long.