Written and Directed by Coralie Fargeat
Produced by Coralie Fargeat, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner
Starring
Demi Moore
Margaret Qualley
Dennis Quaid
Cinematography Benjamin Kračun
Edited by Coralie Fargeat, Jérôme Eltabet, Valentin Feron
Music by Raffertie
Production companies Working Title Films, Blacksmith, A Good Story
Distributed by Mubi & Metropolitan Filmexport
Running time 141 minutes
Language English
Budget $18 million
Box office $77–82 million
The Substance is a gorefest that will leave the viewer with the impression that the human body contains several hundred gallons of blood. It really needed a disclaimer: “No phlebotomists were drowned in the making of this movie. Well, no important ones, anyway.” I’ll mention this right up front, because while the film has its notable virtues, there are some who aren’t going to want to watch it, no matter how good it is.
Demi Moore plays Elizabeth Sparkle, a fading sex bomb whose career grinds to a halt on the occasion of her fiftieth birthday. She is cruelly fired by her producer, Harvey (played to brutal, sleazy, sexist perfection by Dennis Quaid). Later that day she crashes her car, and while not seriously injured, gets checked up at the ER. A nurse, learning of her circumstances, tells her there is a drug to be had that restores youth and beauty. He hands her a card with a number.
Desperate, she calls the number, to learn from a creepy monotone voice where she can acquire the drug, and learn the ground rules of its use. With nothing to lose, she tries it.
A new her (Margaret Qualley) emerges from her body much the way a butterfly emerges from a chrysalis. The old body takes harm that normally would be fatal, but is comatose. Her new self, Sue, is Elisabeth at her prime, some thirty years earlier. She applies for “her” old job, gets it, and rapidly becomes a super star.
But there’s a catch, because there’s always a catch. She must feed her old body to keep it alive, and every seven days, swap her mind back into the old body and inhabit it for seven days, while Sue is comatose in her place. Needless to say, she much prefers being Sue to being Elisabeth, and starts testing the limits on the seven day time share. This works to the serious detriment of Elisabeth, who develops an intense dislike for Sue, even though they are the same person.
Thus the stage is set for a truly ghastly denouement.
There is some fine acting in this, especially from Demi Moore, who has to have some personal opinions on the circumstances Elisabeth faces and does a courageous job of slowly becoming horribly grotesque. And the interactions between her two forms are portrayed with surprising sophistication and compassion. Also, backstories were eliminated, and dialogue kept minimal. As a result, the two actors really had to step to the fore to convey the story. This raises it well above the level of your standard splatter flick.
It’s a bit of a spoiler, but you’ll enjoy what happens to Harvey. He really had it coming.