The Substance - Review

Or lack thereof...

The Substance (2024)

I really do not want to step on any toes today with this review. A year ago my experience on Substack was mostly in isolation in that I posted a lot but got very little feedback or much readership. However, since then I have reached out and become familiar with a community of people on here who similarly appreciate cinema and other forms of entertainment. As such I have seen, and read, several reviews of director Coralie Fargeat’s 2024 film The Substance with the vast majority showering it with great praise. I have stated a number of times on here that I have a contrarian nature which means that whenever I feel that most people are thinking one thing I tend to want to rebel and think the opposite. That is my way of warning whoever is reading this that this is not going to be a glowing review for the above mentioned film.

Having thought about this movie after seeing it I feel that the best way of explaining my problem with it is to say that I believe that there is a difference between a good message and a good film. The message at the heart of the film is earnest and worthwhile. That is to say that it is very true that many women are treated unfairly in terms of aging in that for men they are often seen as figures of growing stature and authority as they age while women are often discarded and lose social power. Before going any further I want to highlight the example of Lisa LaFlamme who for those here in Canada they will know for being a mainstay at CTV News before she was let go of for reasons which are not dissimilar from the hardship experienced by Demi Moore’s character in the Substance. While I appreciate that The Substance is a film which tackles this problem head on I fear that the way in which it did it was not very productive in that it turned what could have been a nuanced conversation about how society should handle aging into a bombastic Jekyll and Hyde battle between being young and old.

Demi Moore, for all of the praise she has been given and rightfully so for her vulnerable and powerful performance, is also not given that much depth to explore the nature of her character. At the start of the film Moore is shown to be the centre of attraction on a fitness program where nothing seems all that out of the ordinary until she overhears the verbose Dennis Quaid character of Harvey espousing highly sexist and agist remarks reflecting his desire to replace Moore with a younger, and in his view, more profitable woman. Not long after Moore is sent on a crash course, quite literally, which leads her to seeking out the help of a secretive organization that promises to help rejuvenate her career, rejuvenate being the key word, at least in my opinion.

As Demi Moore is transformed into a younger, and supposedly better version, of herself she regains that power that she had in her youth where her looks and ability to flirt open doors and disarm anyone who has a problem with her. Here I feel that the movie almost makes its lead character, who we are meant to feel sympathy for, a villain in that while we see the extreme lengths to which she is willing to go to to regain her youth it is not something she does to overcome something she never could, rather, it is an attempt to relive what she already has. For many not gifted with great looks they will never be able to get into the room in which Moore is grieving not being allowed back into. That is to say that the movie is less a conversation about patriarchy and more about vanity, at least that is my take away.

Margaret Qualley is an extremely talented actress, as anyone familiar with her work in the HBO series The Leftovers to Tarantino’s 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will tell you, and here she is no less charismatic or captivating. Still, there is a lack of depth to her character in that as soon as she erupts onto the stage she is both comfortable in her new skin and willing to use it for all it is worth to advance her career while discarding her old self. While I understand that the movie is trying to show the dichotomy between how society values youth and disparages seniority in women I feel that the simplistic way in which it did such that Qualley was Oz and Moore Kansas made it hard to feel that invested in either Moore and Qualley’s characters or in their story.

While watching The Substance I kept being reminded of Paul Verhoeven’s 1995 disasterpiece Showgirls in which the young Nomi, played by Elizabeth Berkley, storms onto the scene much to the shagreen of Gina Gershon’s seasoned character of Cristal. As the movie goes on Nomi is shown the truth of what a life where people view your looks as your only value truly means in that she is treated more as a commodity in a cut throat environment where supply is not the problem. Toward the end Gershon’s character states the above pictured quote which I felt succinctly conveyed that which The Substance struggled to stay focused on through its runtime.

Technically The Substance is a mostly well made film with excellent cinematography, top notch performances, and incredible practical effects which once more brought body horror to the mainstream which I appreciate being a big Cronenberg and Carpenter fan. I suppose my real problem with the film is that it does not stand out that much nor does it feel like a breath of fresh air despite the very real problem, which is too often ignored, that it is confronting.

The Substance is less a movie about age and more about addiction. Another film which it reminded me of was Frank Coraci’s 2006 work Click which featured Adam Sandler being gifted a universal remote from a crazily haired Christopher Walken which allows him the ability to skip over certain parts of his life in order to get to what he views as the good stuff. Not too long later Sandler realizes that while the remote allows him to experience the highlights of his life it is also skipping the struggle of what makes life important along with speeding up the aging process such that both his vitality is decreasing while many of the people he values around him are becoming diminished or dying. Similarly, in The Substance Qualley’s character does not appreciate her newfound youth as an expansion of her existence, rather, she wields it solely as if it were a weapon to get that which she desires, which is simply more. More fame, more romance, more power, more, more, more.

Just as Sandler found out in Click Qualley too finds out the hard truth that squeezing more out of life than is there will have a consequence. In that way the movie is highly predictable in that as soon as we are told the consequences of what staying in the young body longer will have we know that eventually it will come to pass similar to how Billy being told the rules about Mogwai was prescient foreshadowing in a movie titled Gremlins. That is all to say that The Substance, at least to me, did not bring anything that new to the screen, which is a shame.

Toward the end of the film the movie becomes less about the plot and more about shock value. The more Qualley disrespects the rules to fulfill her own desire to spend more time in the body society appreciates the worse the condition of Moore becomes. Essentially, the movie which I thought was meant to criticize how society treats age, became one which operated in a way that produces entertainment from seeing just how deformed Moore can become while aging at a rapid rate. Though the body horror is well done, even if it did remind me of the Arrow release for Society (1989) pictured above, it is not done in a way which I felt helped progress the conversation about aging in that it treated Moore as a fascination rather than a human being.

The last aspect of the movie I want to discuss is how it approaches Qualley’s youth. Being the ‘better version’ of Moore allows her the opportunity to replace her on her Richard Simmons' esque exercise show which quickly transforms into a triple X rated affair filled with lots of twerking and close ups of body parts which I would rather not discuss. While I understand that the movie is satirizing the male gaze and how society uses sexualized content in a variety of mediums, I included an example of such content below, I feel that it did not do it in a way that was constructive or helpful. Rather, the movie simply produced a number of shots for internet weirdos to filter onto message boards for purposes I’d rather not think or talk about.

I feel uncomfortable writing this review since I know this movie has been well received by so many and I hope that anyone reading this does not take my words the wrong way. I understand that this movie tackles a very important issue and for many it may have helped to process their experience with it or to alleviate the pain of having to live in a society which is unfair. At the end of the day I am just discussing my opinion about movies on here and that is all I wanted to accomplish today. My words do nothing to take away the experience of other people watching this movie which may have been profound or inevitably result in Moore, or others, receiving golden statues for their work here. At the same time I have to be honest as the publication is titled “These Thoughts are My Own.”