4 hours ago
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Thinking about it, I wasn’t sure which image disturbed me more: the one where an eyeball begets another eyeball and the two of them start jostling for prominence in the same socket hole?; or the one where one eyeball begets four other eyeballs and they, you know, start slamming into each other?
On reflection, it’s the first that’s worse. As terrifying as the second may be, in a moment that sets off The Substance’s super gross-out denouement, it is at least expected. Also, with four eyes (actually it could be six, or eight, it all happens so quickly) you can feel the body horror being ratcheted up to levels of preposterousness that take the edge off. The first instance, by contrast, is simple and pure; it jabs its fingers into your stomach and squeezes away until it takes physical effort to stop yourself from gagging.
So, that’s that. Ranked. And a little something I wanted to get out of the way before going further into why Coralie Fargeat’s story of a middle-aged woman who will do anything to get a pert butt should win this year’s best picture award.
At least that’s one way of interpreting the plot of this film. Another is that Demi Moore’s Elisabeth Sparkle, the former Hollywood star turned Jane Fonda-esque dancercise queen, accepts an invitation to try a mysterious new treatment because she wants to prolong her career. Or, maybe, she is not sure what she wants at all and tries the substance just to do “something”. In many reviews of the movie this lack of clarity has been pinned down as a weak spot. If The Substance is an allegory, what is it an allegory of, exactly? But liberating yourself from the quest for intentional meaning, I found, only made The Substance more compelling.
I knew about The Substance many months before I watched it, because the chatter around it found its way into my social feeds. This is not common for me, largely because my social media diet of football analysis and political journalists means nothing original ever comes my way. But here it was, a movie that had not only had a clear visceral impact on its audience, but also led them to ponder on its meaning.
Personally, I’m interested in the angle that says The Substance is a critique on consumer capitalism; the idea that a product can resolve the internal anguish that exists in all of us (or at least encourage it to form a homunculus that bursts from your spine). But I’m even more interested in a film that allows for such speculation at all. Fargeat said she wanted to “explode the idea of beauty. To show the reality of who we really are and what we’re made of”, and that allows for a broader reflection on the human condition.
The visual language helps this process along. From the opening shot of a cracked egg giving birth to a more perfect cracked egg, provocative images are contrived consistently and stick in your brain. The lifesize photo of Elisabeth in her exercise gear, hung in the heart of her apartment like a cross between a religious icon and a hunting trophy. Meanwhile, outside gazing in, an even bigger billboard tribute to Elisabeth’s more perfect alter ego, Sue, bought and paid for by corporate America. The font and the legend of The Substance itself (“You stabilise every day”) that comes over half-health supplement, half-chemical weapon. The corridor of red, patterned linoleum that is just demanding a torrent of blood be unleashed across it. The various pustules of differing colours. The breast in the middle of the face.
I can’t think of many other movies I’ve watched recently that have so many memorable images. I can’t think of one that’s been so gleefully gory or in such bad taste. The former is a better argument for giving The Substance an Oscar, but the second would work too at a push: good art that is in bad taste? There are not many films like that on at the multiplex, and even less likely on a streamer.
We can go on. The Substance has Moore giving a career-defining performance and Margaret Qualley an internet-breaking one. It has the impetus of history behind it, with the chance to become the first horror movie to win best picture (some people say that was The Silence of the Lambs, I would say no, that was a police procedural). It’s also a movie for movie lovers, from The Shining references to the Lynchian distortion of physical space, and one that once again encourages the viewer to think: what does this remind me of? (I was transported back to the 90s, and Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste on VHS).
There are umpteen reasons to recommend this film for Hollywood’s most important bauble, and it’s possible to do so wholeheartedly thanks to the knowledge that, in reality, The Substance has no chance of winning at all. It’s a trashy horror film that makes you want to puke, for God’s sake, and – get this – it’s even made by a woman! Still, it’s the Academy’s loss. The Substance will probably continue unaffected: bouncing around our various screens and inside our heads, pulling us up short. This meme of a movie has a life of its own.
