To say the female body has been one of the most central subjects of scrutiny in cinema since its advent would be an understatement, and to say that the 21st century has been a “golden age” of redefining how that is done would be, too. However, amongst the myriad of cult “feminist” films, and most recent successes, there is a clear tendency in which these stories are either exclusively concerned with sexuality, reproductive rights, and/or young women, or still obnoxiously through the lens of the male gaze (Poor Things, oopsies). Here enters Coralie Fargeat: dancing along the border of arthouse and body horror, the French director’s bloody satire The Substance heads in the opposite direction, taking on beauty standards and self-scrutiny through a parable-like tale about society’s infatuation with young bodies. Although I am prone to making every good film I see my new favourite, this film, for me, was in a different league.
Set in a bizarrely unfamiliar Los Angeles of concrete, retro hallways, and iPhones, with cinematographer Benjamin Kracun’s bold colour palette aptly suited to the excessiveness of contemporary Hollywood, Fargeat’s fondness for the suspension of belief is clear, as we meet Elisabeth Sparkle (a bold Demi Moore) in a slightly alien world which with each passing minute becomes increasingly surreal, yet hauntingly relatable. Elizabeth, a success-studded ex-Hollywood star who now leads a fitness show, has just turned 50, and with that, is in the midst of the emotional carnage of being hurled into obsolescence and irrelevance by a society with a big, fat fetish for female youth. Fired by Harvey, her comically grotesque boss, the reason is simple – “after 50, it stops”. However, control and judgement over women’s bodies does extend a lifetime, and unfortunately, cinema has often neglected the stories of middle-age and older women, often reducing them to superficial side-characters or redundant tropes (see “hagsploitation” or the “sweary granny”). Not Fargeat.
Soon enough, as her medic’s assistant becomes a sort of dealer for Ozempic, Elisabeth is offered a solution– enter “The Substance” (strangely enough to be collected from seemingly an Amazon locker– this one was probably called GLP-1) . In this offering to consumers of the perfect body, but under the mandatory condition that they switch between their “initial” and “new” body every seven days, the gore of this film is born, quite literally. As Sue (Margaret Qualley) erupts from Elisabeth’s spine, we meet this eerily perfect “other self”. Following in the footsteps of Carrie, the blood is everywhere in this film, but it is important to note that the humour in both the film’s absurdity and script make it bearable– the previously mentioned Harvey (Dennis Quaid, stellar), and basically every man in the film, are hilariously caricatured misogynists shot through fish-eye lenses or intrusive close-ups– at one point, about 10 old, white, staring men enter the screen, reminiscent of that photo of Trump and his little friends signing an anti-abortion bill. Anyways.
Although Sue and Elisabeth’s balance is feasible at first, unsurprisingly, it soon goes awry. In one of the many claustrophobic shower shots of an agonised Elisabeth, I was reminded of Hitchcock’s Psycho– allegedly the first modern expression of the female body under assault in film, the assault here is redefined as internal and self-inflicted. As Sue keeps wanting more and more, catapulting to fame as she takes over Elisabeth’s role on the show, she slowly decrepitates the latter’s body as disrespecting the mandatory condition, in a “Gremlins”-like way, comes at a cost. When Elisabeth is awake, she sinks into a downward spiral of self-hatred. The mood becomes obsessive, and backed by a propulsive EDM soundtrack which at times is surprisingly Challengers-esque, increasingly frantic.
Watching the film’s last 30-45 minute act, at its most absurdly gorey, in a packed cinema, was unparalleled. Finally, it becomes too much: Elisabeth tries to end the cycle, unsubscribing from this dependency on “The Substance”– however, she cannot allow herself to completely follow through with the switch, and, in the subsequent malfunction where both her and Sue coexist, they become increasingly violent with each other. With unrivalled prosthetics reminiscent of Crash and Videodrome, to see this ancient, Gollum-like figure being beat up, to see the internal fight with the self made physical, was somehow extraordinarily emotional. Here, the horror of it all, for me, went past “fun” (because the film IS fun), and made complete sense. The cutting open of bodies, deformation of them, violent, bloody fights between women, and even the subtle violence of each woman looking at the other’s unconscious body on the floor with disdain… Through some form of Schlovsky’s “estrangement”, creating this alternative reality which is absurdly violent yet reflects the horrors of living in our reality under patriarchal media led me to a deeply emotive conclusion at the film’s end: to hate your body, to fully believe it can devalue you IS horror, albeit psychological. The film thrives in acting as a strong vehicle to allow female spectators to acknowledge and really feel this sentiment to its fullest extent.
When our “victor” Sue soon starts also decrepitating and orders another set of “the Substance” only to birth Monstra-Elisasue, an almost-non-human patchwork of breasts, faces, flesh and joints, at first, I was sceptical. I wondered how the film could be resolved fulfillingly without losing the momentum it had, but Fargeat made it happen, and well. Showing up instead of Sue to her final extravagant New Year’s Eve show, and essentially exploding onto the audience, the ending is a complete release, and complete whatthefuckery. The male gaze is completely ridiculed, and Fargeat’s satirical fetish for the body becomes evermore powerful. When at her most deformed, breast falling out of her face, spraying blood onto the masses, Monstra-Elisasue finally holds an overwhelming power, backed by a heavy-metal soundtrack. Here, drawing on Kill Bill and Rambo as she did with her Revenge (2017), we see Fargeat master her “weak” – to – “overpowering authority” – revenge pipeline.
Amongst the countless “vulgar!”-crying men just generally angry with a female use of violence to explore their oppression, several critics point to a lack of substance (sorry, I had to) and plot holes. Yes, some points miss the mark emotionally, with certain montages feeling unnecessary (the fire ones, sorry), but as you can tell, here we are nit-picking. The film takes caricatures and core feelings surrounding what women go through under the beauty standards of today’s culture, and lets you feel them to the level of psychological torture which they actually are, unlocking that relatability within yourself to a deeper level. It does not need more complexity than this, especially when the script itself is so well thought-out and complex. Emotional resonance is at the core of this film, and cinema does not need to be theoretically sophisticated for it to be great cinema. Also, the film won “Best Screenplay” at Cannes. Come on, now.
The closing scene taps into Fargeat’s love of the cyclical, and, with Monstra-Elisasue’s blood, having exploded on her Hollywood star after sludging out of the NYE show, quickly being wiped away in the morning, we are brutally reminded of the disposability of women in a beauty-driven cultural economy of eternal judgement. On an individual level, it is frank– despite the hype, and like the rest of us, neither Elisabeth nor Sue will get their “new year, new me”, I think.