by A.J.
Best Pictures #112: 2024 Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee
“There’s been a slight misuse of the substance.”
The Substance is weird, wild stuff. It is not exactly scary but it is horrifying. This is not just a horror movie but specifically a body-horror movie with sights and sounds that rival or maybe even go beyond anything in David Cronenberg's The Fly or John Carpenter's The Thing. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat, who won the Best Screenplay award at the Cannes Film Festival, has created not merely a geek show but a darkly funny satire of the effects the male gaze on female body image anchored by an incredible Oscar nominated performance from Demi Moore.
Moore plays fitness star Elisabeth Sparkle who has just turned 50 and so is fired from her TV show. After a car accident she receives a mysterious note about "the substance", which promises to unlock a “younger, more beautiful, more perfect” version of herself. Once she injects herself with the green liquid–guaranteed to remind horror fans of the re-agent from the cult classic Re-Animator–her back splits open along her spine and out is “birthed” a younger version of herself, played by Margaret Qualley. There are rules. Each version gets 7 days to be active while the other is in a comatose state and then they have to switch. There are no exceptions. The other self has to "stabilize" with an injection of body fluid from the original self everyday. There are no exceptions. Things go well at first, of course. The other self, Sue, is able to get the job hosting the new version of the exercise show, which is more focused on shaking butts than actual exercise. Then of course the rules are broken with increasingly bad results. Elisabeth and Sue come to resent and despise each other. They forget that they are one and any damage done cannot be undone.
As incredible as the special makeup effects are, The Substance just would not work without Demi Moore’s fearless performance. When I say that Moore's performance is fearless I don't mean her willingness to take a role so focused on her appearance or her willingness to do nude scenes. She is fearless in how she goes big and over the top, which is exactly what this movie requires. Her muttering to herself as she watches TV interviews of Sue while furiously cooking is hilarious. The contortions she puts her body through in the "birth" scene is another impressive moment. The scene that made me squirm and want to look away involved no gross effects at all. Elisabeth has finished her makeup and is ready for a date. Then she sees a billboard of Sue. She goes back to redo her makeup while the clock ticks in over her shoulder. Then, she sees the billboard again and goes back to the bathroom mirror again. It is an excruciating scene, but also brilliant cinema. Many of Moore's most effective moments are silent, whether she is slumped over at a bar with four empty martini glasses or reacting to a horrifying change in her body after Sue has taken extra time. This is why I believe that Moore is worthy of all the praise and awards she has received thus far and why I'll be happy if she wins the Best Actress Oscar. I only hope that her next role, no matter the genre, makes as full a use of her talents and skills as The Substance.
The makeup effects are impressive to say the least and obviously practical, to the delight of horror fanatics like myself. CGI gloop will never be as gross or effective as handmade gloop. The final act is a gross out extravaganza that may be over the line for a lot of people. You wonder where else can the film go but Fargeat’s screenplay finds a place and slithers there. The “birth” scene is the first real gross out moment, so if that is too much then you definitely won't like the rest of what happens. However an early clue about how gross the movie might become is an early scene of lunch with Elizabeth’s boss (Dennis Quaid playing a living cartoon) eating shrimp. Extreme closeups of his mouth munching shrimp, the dipping sauce, discarded food bits mixed with an extra loud sound design and Quaid’s frenetic dialogue are an assault on the senses, and this is for a scene of something normal.
Even as The Substance did well at the box office and Moore kept winning awards, I thought: Demi may get a Best Actress nomination or even win, but the film will never get a Best Picture nomination; it'll be lucky if it even gets a much deserved makeup & hairstyling nomination. The Academy is just not that cool. But I was wrong. The Academy was cool enough to give The Substance nominations for Best Picture, Actress for Moore, Director and Original Screenplay for Fargeat, and that much deserved Makeup & Hairstyling nomination. Of course, whether this wins anything or not, The Substance has made its mark and will likely find a place in the modern horror canon.
Nominees: Coralie Fargeat and Tim Bevan & Eric Fellner, Producers
Director: Coralie Fargeat
Screenplay: Coralie Fargeat
Cast: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid
Production Companies: Working Title Films, Blacksmith
Distributor: Mubi
Release Date: September 20th, 2024
Total Nominations: 5, including Best Picture
Other Nominations: Actress-Demi Moore; Director- Coralie Fargeat; Original Screenplay-Coralie Fargeat; Makeup & Hairstyling-Pierre Olivier Persin, Stéphanie Guillon, Marilyne Scarselli
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