The Substance
Writer
& Director ~ Coralie Fargeat
2024,
UK-France
Stars
~ Margaret Qualley, Demi Moore, Dennis Quaid
(This first section is a reprint of my original FrightFest review.)
Broad of
satire, unconvincing of detail, full of glorious excess, ‘The Substance’
is an EC Comic horror full of crowd-pleasing absurdity – an extended ‘Creepshow’
tale. If I went in perhaps expecting Cronenberg-lite, in fact the callbacks
were to ‘Society’, ‘Basket Case’ and even ‘TerrorVision’, the
early films of Stuart Gordon; those grungy, silly, outrageousness,
flabbergasting films that were the Eighties output of Empire Pictures and
Troma. Surely Cannes can’t be as familiar with this output as the FrightFest
audience and had never quite seen something like ‘The Substance’, therefore
giving it awards.
My friend
called it “Gore Barbie” and that seems to me a thoroughly succinct summary.
Demi
Moore and Margaret Qualley look gorgeous and give it their all, and there is
much amusement in the battle between youth and aging here, even if it never
addresses the subjects of narcissism. The film’s call for kindness to yourself
across the ages is a sincerely felt one, although the audience was baying with
laughter at the inter-generational fight made flesh. Also, despite how much the
film insists, they never feel like the same person, as “one”. It is as
brilliant as it is stupid.
The
opening vignette that establishes Elizabeth Sparkle’s (Moore) waning fame is
excellent, the constant unsubtlety less so (we get it: Dennis Quaid is gross).
Internal logic and answering questions are not really in its interest (how
could “Sue” (Qualley) possibly function as a huge star on magazine covers
without history? Does she get an audition, accepted and film a show in a week?
She taps a hollow wall and finds an empty room behind? Wait, who is behind “The
Substance”, what is their agenda and what do they gain?).
But the
comic book look, the art design, the practical effects are where ‘The
Substance’ excels, pushing itself right to the end into a “fuck it”
splatterfest until using out-there gore to return us to the beginning with an
astute ending whose unsubtlety works. The FrightFest audience rightly treated
the whole thing as a comedy with a little grit, stupidity and feminine anger,
and for that it is a giddy body horror that wins by taking the lead of the body
horror that came before. And of course, you get a callback to ‘The Shining’
carpet as well.
But...
My friend
called it ‘Gore Barbie’* and that seems to me a thoroughly succinct summary. And
like the similar phenomenon of ‘Barbie’ it is similarly colourful but
unsubtle. ‘Barbie’ had its Girl Power on its pink plastic tiara, had fun
at the expense of the bros, but it didn’t really offer anything progressive,
nothing challenging a binary us-or-them way of imagining gender; and then it
descended into the tiresome sentimental mainstreaming sermonising that
undermines the satire. Even so, there was a few subtle gags beneath the garish
veneer and gleefully provoked misogynists, so all to the good. Alternatively, I
sat through ‘The Substance’ just waiting for a nuance, but none came. Rather,
its cartoonery and absurdism and body horror kept dragging me in and batting
away my reservations.
But I
balked at the news that it won Best Screenplay at Cannes. I mean, it is a lot
of fun and it is bookended by two satisfying Hollywood Star moments, but if
screenplays are to be celebrated for dialogue, structure, layers of meaning, execution
and refinement of theme, how can ‘The Substance’ win? ‘Red Rooms’,
‘Anatomy of a Fall’, ‘Burning’ are all at the top of my list of recent
screenplays, but if we are to look at genre, ‘The Demon Disorder’ may be
the lesser body horror – centred on men this time – but it does have
characters. ‘The Substance’ doesn’t have characters but caricatures. Horror
is full of Final Girl fury and has been for a while, and films like ‘A
Wounded Fawn’ or ‘Piggy’ and ‘Pearl’ offer WTF factors, the last
especially hinged on the psychopathy of ambition. ‘The Substance’s failing
is that although it is about the internal conflict between ages in the same
body, there is no real sense of who Elizabeth Sparkle is, and if Sue is
anything to go by, she’s selfish and vain. It’s a fantasy context that doesn’t
give her shade: there’s a sense that however topical its feminist outrage is,
it’s not very of the zeitgeist. No overwhelming fans, no social media, she’s a
TV fitness star which feels a little retro, no huge business infrastructure.
The realisation is that this superficiality is the secret to ‘The Substance’s
success, in that it contains nothing troubling. It doesn’t have the sadness of
the pop-coloured ‘Promising Young Woman’, or the distress of Brea
Grants’ ‘Lucky’, or the insidiousness chill of ‘The Assistant’. Or indeed the heartbreaking desperation of the ‘Guillermo del Toro's
Cabinet of Curiosities’ episode ‘The Outside’. Indeed,
that’s surely how such an extreme body horror is in the mainstream. It must be
a gleeful shock to those unfamiliar with the genre and a riot for fans.
‘The
Substance’
succeeds as an outrageous visual feast and absurdity, not on angles and layers.
There’s a sloppiness that seems unnecessary and undermining when so much else
is thoroughly entertaining and a little transgressive – it was the same with
Fargeat’s previous ‘Revenge’. If you’re someone who likes to stick a
fork in and turn it over to see what’s on the other side, ‘The Substance’
is a little undercooked, but it is a triumph of gusto over thematic
nuance. As a horror comedy in the Henenlotter style, it’s a scream, and where
Fargeat has made it to your local multiplex, that’s a singular achievement.
Never thought I would see the day.
* Thanks, Nata!
