A film review by Cliff Homewood
Do you want to go to a Freak show?
Are you sure?
The Substance is partly inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray with body horror as disgusting as The Fly’s. It wallows in gore. This film’s full of grotesque, its first half reminding of Robocop’s ‘Do you want to buy that for a dollar?’ style. A satire on the repulsiveness of men and the revering of female beauty. Early on asking do you want to be a better you, your perfect self? Who’s version of perfect? “Stay young and beautiful if you want to be loved.” The story is a Jekyll and Formaldehyde, preserving beauty with its substance – for a certain amount of time. Who wants to be old with the ugliness that brings? Demi Moore holds the screen and bravely went fully naked for the camera, showing her body in all its graphic detail. She’s proved before she’s not shy (Striptease, Vogue) but felt nervous about nudity at 61 but credits 29yr old Margaret Qualley for making her feel comfortable. Margaret also reveals all, but used prosthetic breasts stating, “Coralie (Writer/Director) found an incredible prosthetic team to endow me with the rack of a lifetime, just not my lifetime.”
The beginning of the film reminded me of Aaronofsky’s Black Swan with its portrayal of people’s addiction to looking right for their art. In this, the fitness video, it’s a celebration of young and beautiful, of the Sexy. The camera lingers, slowly panning up, savouring every detail of a beautiful woman. Flashbacks of Batman & Robin when the camera salivates up her black clad form. Dennis Quaid squelching into food and being generally unpleasant is a good example of how men are portrayed, all fishbowl lenses and extreme close ups. Everybody drools over her. You feel it in the air of every scene. Desiring her. But the portrayal is empty, because she’s empty, no signs of friends or family, a life empty of all apart from that of being adored. It’s a fairytale, a fable. A simplification, or distillation, down to archetype, you either want or are wanted. The Director, Coralie Fargeat has talent, style, long corridors abound as in The Shining, she knows how to portray grand guignol so vividly you can almost hear the flies buzzing.
You know where it’s going, this woman of substance, it’s the Nutty Professor with body love instead of Buddy Love. Horror instead of comedy. The obsession with beauty is perhaps an ugly one. Margaret’s Sue is truly beautiful, effervescent. Shining in her scenes, magnetic with warmth and cuteness. Although you never truly care for her as she isn’t given that depth, you are transfixed. At least until the horror comes to the fore, then it depends on the viewers’ reaction. For me, two and half hours was half hour too long, normally when our hero meets their fate the horrors end. Make it stop, please make it stop. I felt like the titular fly in the 1950’s version, ‘help me’ (The Substance had some nice metaphoric scenes at the beginning of feeling trapped, ageing out of her chosen career). I did not want to have my memory seared, it’s not going to be an easy film to forget. I stared at the wall of the cinema as I didn’t want anything too repulsive lodged in my memory banks. Horror films get stronger because they can, 1930’s horror feels quaint now. The Omen in its day was criticised by critics for its revelling in bloody denouements, an early splatter film. This does not feel mainstream enough to make that sea change, more a curiosity for those who like their horror strong. I’m not opposed, I enjoyed cult films like Society, however I bowed out of torture porn with Saw IV, realising I was being masochistic, enduring the film rather than enjoying it, like I endured the end of this. It did however have a good ending.
Universal, who were originally due to distribute, were “worried about the prospect of releasing the film” and dropped it. Mubi luckily picked it up. An impressive directorial satire which won the best screenplay at Cannes and got a 13 minute standing ovation but I couldn’t help but be reminded of Stephen King’s comment that it’s easy to do gross out. The film has all the fascination of a car crash as the director luxuriates in detail.
The Substance is both good and bad. Or just good if you like strong horror. It’s skewed view of life, men all braying, women all preening, is impressive and its perhaps hypocritical to not mind the camera obsessing on beauty but then not liking it when it later obsesses on ugly, but there it is. That is its substance.