THE SUBSTANCE

US, 2024, 140 minutes, Colour.

Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Denis Quaid.

Directed by Coralie Fargeat.

The substance is a serious, challenging drama on some key contemporary issues, winner of the Best Screenplay Award at Cannes, 2024. However, it could also be described as “not for the fainthearted”. The Australian government classification is indicative: R18+ ‘High impact violence, blood and gore’.

The film was written and directed by French filmmaker, Coralie Fargeat (whose previous feature film, 2017s Revenge, which treated similar themes with pervasive blood). This film, in fact, was made in Paris but with American key leads. Coralie Fargeat is an angry filmmaker, standing up and strongly assertive for women, targeting the exploitation of the “male gaze” and women’s treatment by sleazy males, here in the television industry and advertising.

To indicate the serious treatment here, this reviewer immediately started to think about Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the doctor at home and his experimentation, taking substances, and his public persona, charming but sinister, Mr Hyde. In fact, the director herself has suggested thinking about Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, the ugly ageing portrait at home, the seemingly perennial youthful public figure. And, some reviewers also offer helpful cinema and theatre comparisons, the 1966 Seconds, with Rock Hudson, a banker wanting to start his life again with a new identity and a new face. Another suggestion is the story of the ageing and fading star, Norma Desmond, in Sunset Boulevard.

Star of this film is Demi Moore, 40 years after she began her film career – appearing in this film and her being exposed in so many ways seems a courageous choice on her part. She plays a Jane Fonda like television host of aerobic exercises for women, quite a celebrity, a corridor filled with flattering posters… But, she is 50. She is 20 years over the expected age for such a less celebrity. She has to go. She is involved in a car crash – ironically as she stares at her image being torn down from a boulevard billboard.

While the film has a range of male characters, they are presented as leering, stupid, followers, incompetent… And, at the head, is Dennis Quaid as an over-the-top sleazy television producer. Satirical, maybe, but #Me Too exposes and court cases indicate the elements of truth.

This film runs for 140 minutes so the audience has plenty of time to contemplate what is happening, the ageing star taking the substance, the consequences for her inner self to emerge, physically, thirtysomething mentality and appearance, to take her place. The new self, is Sue, played by Margaret Qualey who is appearing in more and more significant roles in recent years. She is the right age for the male gaze, for audience popularity – and she basks in it only to be the agent of her own downfall. Some of the transformation sequences have their harrowing and startling moments, commentators referring to as “body horror”. But, as with Jekyll and Hyde, there has to be a reckoning, Jekyll becoming a monster, Hyde and his exposure.

Which means that the climax of the film has high monstrous elements, physically, psychologically, violently, a climax and a New Year’s Eve television show where everyone is spattered with the blood of the creatures.

Symbolically, the film opens with a popular star on the Hollywood catwalk of Fame , gradually deteriorating and ignored – and, that is where the film ends, a star is born and dies.

1. The title, the focus, anonymous name, powerful substance program, consequences?
2. The work of the director, angry, targeting the male gaze, portraying ridiculous men, sleazy men? Presenting ambitious women? Glamorous women? Issue of ageing? Public response, television audiences?
3. The plausibility of the plot, the history of bodily enhancements? Consequences, glamorous appearance, ageing, artificiality? Surgeons – but, here, self-and administered procedures? The strict instructions, no deviation?
4. Demi Moore and her career, parallels with her character? No holding back in her performance? Margaret Qualey, young, glamour, success, ambition, ruthlessness, self-centredness?
5. The opening, the Hollywood star, preparing, success, age, people ignoring it, walking over it? Spilling the food? And the return to the star at the end, Elizabeth Sparkle and her face and the prosthetics, disappearing?
6. Elizabeth Sparkle, her story, the parallel with the Jane Fonda row pick programs? At 50, appearance, age, her team, her slogans, the corridor, her portraits? Her being fired, interactions with Harvey? His associates? His sleazy interventions? The impact, the billboard, taking her down, the car crash, no injuries, the assistant, his insinuations, the address on her coat?
7. Elizabeth and her moral stance, 50, her career, vanity, pride, her home in luxury, the big poster? Her angers, the quest for her successor? The maid, cleaning, boning the agency, the number, going, the backyard, stooping to go in, her locker, material, taking it home, the audience seeing the implications? Her decision to go ahead?
8. The Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde theme? The director and her reference to the Picture of Dorian Grey? 21^st-century versions, female versions? The same issues?
9. The drama of the transformation, the frank presentation of the bodies, naked, vulnerable, the emergence of Sue? The seven days for each of them to live, the transfer and’s? The rules? No deviation?
10. Sue, going to the studio, with Harvey, the two men and the auditions and their male gaze, criticisms of the women are auditioning, the response to Sue? Harvey and his excitement, the executives? The program, the rehearsals, the exercises, her style, the supporting cast, her looking at the audience? Success? Provision to be absent for a week to care for her mother? Harvey and his enthusiasm? The success of the program? The risks, deviating, the consequences for Elizabeth and her finger?
11. The success of weeks for each of the characters, Elizabeth collapsing, in the house, the gift of the French cookbook and the recipes, watching television, her anger with Sue? Going to collect the supplies? The discussions with the anonymous voice? Sue, success, summoned to Harvey, her fears, the offer of hosting the New Year’s Eve show?
12. Sue, her life, the men, sex, Oliver across the way? The consequences for her, drinking, the deviations?
13. Elizabeth, her anger, the temptation to stop the program, her motivation for not going through that, her change of mind, part of the process, stopping?
14. Sue, the New Year’s Eve, the dress, Harvey and the executives? The style of the show? The previous incident with a lump in her buttock, drawing it out? The restroom, her teeth, the body degenerating, in the corridor, smiling without opening her mouth? Her fleeing, going home, the confrontation with Elizabeth, the injections, the viciousness of the fight, Elizabeth and her age, monstrosity? Her being bashed?
15. The transformation in Sue, the prosthetics, the ugliness, the faces, Elizabeth and Sue, going to the studio, Elizabeth mask, the audience reaction, the revelation, the consequences, the crowds, the men denouncing her as monster, the violence, the vast spattering of blood?
16. The fact that the two women wore one, depending on each other, the final collapse, Elizabeth and her face, on the Hollywood star, disappearing? And the cleaners coming over it?
17. The description of the film as a horror film, as body horror, the classic allusions, the two aspects of the one personality, the public charm, the private monstrosity?