Head of Reviews Robert Flynn delves into The Substance, one of the most divisive films of the year, and what makes it so controversial.
The Substance (2024) is a movie of anger. Writer and director Coralie Fargeat’s debut, Revenge (2017), displayed her propensity for bloody violence and her interest in interrogating depictions of women on screen. The Substance reaffirms these interests with an extremely gory, propulsive and deeply disturbing film. While critics at Cannes were quite divided as to whether Fargeat’s sophomore effort contained any artistic merit, or substance for that matter, it can be argued that the film's hints at being vacuous speak to its theme.
Demi Moore feels like deliberate casting on Fargeat's part. Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, a middle aged actress who, despite various accolades and acclaim, has been unjustly fired from her long-held spot on her own fitness television show. We see TV producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid) barge into a bathroom and storms toward the camera into a tight, uncomfortable closeup that looks as though the sleazy and louche producer is relieving himself on the audience. Sparkle overhears him speak on the phone using vitriolic and degrading epithets to describe her, demanding that she be taken off the air due to her lack of sex appeal.
Sparkle is out of a job and lacking any determination. Her star power has waned in recent years and no roles are being offered to a woman of her age. Bereft of any sense of purpose she turns to a mysterious drug named ambiguously as “The Substance”. It promises to create “a better you” and warns that after duplication, you and your “other self” will always be one, inextricably tied to one another.
Sparkle’s younger counterpart takes the form of Sue (Margaret Qualley) who immediately takes the entertainment industry by storm, primarily due to the lecherous inclinations of its male executives. Upon Sue’s arrival into the industry, the film becomes glaringly overt about its thematics. It has cheap dialogue and utilises lots of exploitative camerawork. While some may admonish Fargeat for obvious and poor visual storytelling, these filmic elements feel much more textually focused than flippantly used. The formal elements used when focused on Sue mimic the cheap and sexualised visuals used repetitively, and yet casually, in commercials and reality TV; it’s dialogue, too. If The Substance ever feels immoral or vulgar, it's doing so consciously.
Such a concept is not necessarily revolutionary however and cannot sustain an almost 2 hour 30 minute runtime by itself. Thankfully, The Substance avoids these pitfalls. Fargeat’s subversive use of exploitative camerawork is complimented by her vivid and surreal imagery by itself. It’s a largely experiential film as a result that often values imagery over dialogue. The images produced are a disorientating cocktail of enthralling and completely alienating. Fargeat aims to challenge the audience by putting the camera in places that we’d rather avoid. This is all done to force the viewer to experience the offhandedly vile practices in the entertainment industry that aim to objectify and dehumanise its female workers.
The Substance makes for a sometimes frustrating watch, but ultimately erupts in an unforgettable finale that will continue to spark discussion in audiences for years. Without revealing too much, it has the emotionality of David Lynch’s The Elephant Man (1980) and the graphically mutated character designs of Brian Yuzna’s Society (1989). It is a fool's errand to try to prepare somebody for what unfolds in Coralie Fargeat’s deeply upsetting portrait of the entertainment industry. Nevertheless, if there is anything to keep in mind before viewing, it’s this; If The Substance is making you feel sick, then it's intentional.