Demi Moore’s ‘The Substance’ is the grossest, sexiest movie of the year

Grotesque and sexy in hilariously scandalous ways, the film from writer/director Coralie Fargeat The substance is a squishy tale of one woman’s struggle against the ravages of time. Indebted to the work of David Cronenberg, Brian De Palma and, most self-aware of all, Stanley Kubrick, this body horror shocker is neither subtle nor concise when it comes to its themes or its phantasmagoric nastiness.

Yet this is a stunning genre film, premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 5 and hitting theaters on September 20, after winning Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival in May, a film that evokes a band latching onto a tasty riff and running wild. It pushes everything beyond the point of moderation and decency, until it becomes an exuberant exposé of the personal and cultural forces that drive women mad in their quest for physical perfection.

Led by literally and figuratively revealing performances from a fantastic Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, The substance is a study of Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore), a TV fitness queen who, after spending her 50th birthday taping her hit show — think old-school Jane Fonda workout videos featuring pretty girls performing synchronized routines in spandex — her network boss Harvey (Dennis Quaid) smears her as an emaciated “old b—h” and demands she be replaced.

At a subsequent luncheon, Harvey attempts to disappoint Elisabeth by telling her that “renewal—it’s inevitable.” Rebirth is certainly desired by the fading icon. A humorous opening sequence depicts the diminishing lifespan of Elisabeth’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star, and when she gazes into the mirror, the look of disgust and dismay in the actress’s eyes is unmistakable.

Driving home, Elisabeth is distracted by the sight of her face being ripped off a billboard and is involved in a car accident. At the doctor’s office, she is secretly checked out by a physician’s assistant who announces that she would be a “good candidate.” As she leaves, she is confronted by an old classmate who praises her still vibrant beauty. Unfortunately, she remains obsessed with her declining self-esteem and is therefore intrigued when she discovers that the physician’s assistant has placed a USB drive in the pocket of her bright yellow coat. This device is labeled “The Substance” and has a phone number. Upon returning home, she checks its contents, which relate to a revolutionary cell division process that guarantees “a better version of yourself.”

Elisabeth initially resists this nonsense, but her insecurities about wrinkles won’t leave her alone and she soon contacts the service. This gives her a key card that gives her access to a creepy alley address where she finds a mailbox with a package containing instructions and equipment for The Substance. The first step is to inject herself with an activator. Then, for seven days, she must take a liquid IV food called a “stabilizer,” just like her “other self.” Finally, at the end of the week-long period, she must “switch over.”

Staring naked into the mirror, Fargeat’s camera hovering over every limp fold and crevice of her face, hips, legs and ass, Elisabeth takes the plunge and thrusts herself into the mysterious connection. She promptly falls to the tiled floor, her pupils dilating and her back splitting open, allowing a new being to emerge from within.

That figure is Sue (Qualley), her younger, better doppelganger, who is everything Elisabeth dreamed of. “Remember, you are one,” the voice on the other end of the line says, but Sue sees herself more as Elisabeth 2.0 and quickly gets to work creating the life her other half wanted, complete with a starring role in a fitness program notable for its skimpier outfits and more sexualized content.

Working in an elevated The Twilight Zone-like vein while openly screaming for The Appearance And 2001: A Space Odyssey, The substance dramatizes its action with one extreme, drool-inducing close-up after another, many of them fixated on flawless skin and perfectly shaped buttocks. In doing so, it objectifies to both prove the allure of youth and attractiveness, and to bitingly curse our perpetual obsession with it—a put-down that points men (via Harvey and the unseen Substance mastermind) as the co-creators and purveyors of these toxic beauty standards.

Given that Sue is a pure, idealized version of Elisabeth, it is predictable that she not only craves the spotlight but is also happy to exploit her good looks and sex appeal to seize it. The problem is that at the end of each seven-day period, the duo must switch back and forth between being alive and inanimate—a process made easier by Sue’s construction of a secret room where they can lie undetected during their week of sleep.

The substance‘s hyperrealistic action is at once dreamy and gnarly, not to mention obvious; Fargeat plays every note big, bold and unambiguous. As a result, there are stretches throughout the film’s 140-minute running time where it lingers, grinding its way through twists and turns that could have been foreseen from a mile away. Though never sluggish, it invariably feels turgid.

Fortunately, Moore and Qualley are exceptional as two halves of the same narcissistic and fame-hungry whole, radiating an authoritarian and overwhelming eroticism mixed with sickening desperation and madness. The substance manages to simultaneously titillate and condemn such titillation without ever striking a reproving tone, and as Sue becomes increasingly possessive of her waking hours—and resents Elisabeth as the ball and chain preventing her from fulfilling her ambitions—the film grows slimier and sicker, much to its benefit. Mutation exposes the dark, corrupt heart of these conjoined beings, and the director doesn’t skimp on the gooey, gory, monstrosity, all embellished with vaginal and penetration-related designs and imagery.

As he gazes at the naked bodies of Moore and Qualley with an intensity—alternately admiring and disapproving—that mirrors the protagonists’ self-criticism, The substance acknowledges the appeal of superficial splendor to dissect contemporary beauty culture. There is no mistaking what it has to say, sometimes to the book’s detriment, and yet the impulses it puts forth are spot on, until a third and final chapter that chooses to reemphasize its points in increasingly crazy ways. Going to 12 when 10 would have sufficed shows a real gonzo spirit that reveals the true ugliness of vanity.