Commitment to Sparkle Potion — The Substance
You know, it takes a lot for me to throw my carefully laid plans careening out the window. Last night, after I put up the Hub Post for the Oscar Blitz, I watched The Six Triple Eight, as it’s one of the six outstanding films (though the film itself is far from outstanding) I needed to view to cover all the categories (in this case, another shenanigans Original Song nomination for Diane Warren). After that I started collecting stills (I have a ways to go) and making a full schedule for myself to get through Blitz season, including weekend posts to clear my backlog, handle TFINYW, and obviously attempt to watch and review new movies as well. January and February may be low-output with only smatterings of quality, but it doesn’t feel right to leave 1/6 of the year with nothing.
So I mapped everything out as meticulously as possible, making sure that I can finish relevant batch reviews before I cover their associated categories. Because of the photos, video footage, scripting, filming, and editing I have to do in addition to blogs, it’s very possible that I will post for 50 consecutive days, and by extension, never sleep again.
You can imagine then, my shock and excitement when I had to basically put all of that in jeopardy so that I can review The Substance with a dedicated post right away. I watched the film this afternoon, having missed its theatrical run in September due to various curveballs, but I was intrigued by the premise from the first time I saw the trailer. I considered naming it the “Redemption Reel” for that month’s TFINYW column, but oddly enough, I went for A Different Man instead (which I also missed on the initial run), and now both are up for the Makeup and Hairstyling award. Initially I was going to critique both flicks together in a batch post like I normally do for my Blitz viewings, and tonight the plan was to do the third part of my “TUDUM!” series, focusing on narrative features, as two of the three that Netflix campaigned on got single-category nods.
But that’ll have to wait until tomorrow, because I have to talk about this right fucking now! I’ve already adjusted my schedule, so I won’t miss a day of coverage and I know I have room to do this, but even if the revisions were going to be devastating to my sleep schedule, I would have made it happen.
Because, holy shit, you guys. Seriously, HOLY. GODDAMN. MUTHAFUCKING. SHIT! This is incredible. I will warn you upfront that this film is not for the faint of heart or those with a weak constitution. There is glorious gore to beat the band here, and this is unapologetic body horror. But if you can stomach it, writer-director Coralie Fargeat’s sophomore feature (she debuted in 2017 with the well-received Revenge) is the most unique film of 2024, and barring something truly mindboggling, it’s my #1 for year.
A lot has been made of Demi Moore giving a “career best” performance, but in a weird way, that’s sort of reductive. Immediate comparisons were made between her turn here and Pamela Anderson’s in The Last Showgirl, lumping them together as actresses who were never taken seriously making an insane dramatic comeback. I did the same thing when the respective projects were near their releases, but I shouldn’t have, because this is apples and oranges. Anderson, whether you enjoyed her performance or not, was always pigeonholed because of her sexuality, and never got the chance at a major spotlight, mostly because she’s a serviceable actress at best. Moore, on the other hand, has had a long and consistent career, from her “Brat Pack” days making St. Elmo’s Fire, to her 90s heyday with the likes of Ghost, A Few Good Men, and Indecent Proposal, to solid voice work in Beavis & Butt-Head Do America and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, to campy so-bad-it’s-good fare like Striptease and G.I. Jane. While her sex appeal certainly didn’t hurt her chances at landing big roles, her 21st Century hiatus was self-imposed, a perfectly valid choice she made to devote her time to raising her daughters. She wasn’t forced out due to age and fading looks, and she had far more heft in her résumé.
That said, there were plenty of jokes about her in that regard, particularly when she married the significantly younger Ashton Kutcher. Hell, I still remember an old gag from the Craig Kilborn era of The Daily Show where he was doing a bit on her and then-husband Bruce Willis. I don’t remember the story itself, but I remember his segue of “Willis, who’s 43, and Moore, who’s been 35 for at least three years now…” So like Anderson, she does have real experience of the sexism behind women being seen as disposable in entertainment as they grow older, which does add to the sense of verisimilitude.
The difference between the two, however, is night and day when it comes to acting skill and their characters. Anderson is just not that great of a performer, and as I’ve said before, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s okay to accept your limitations and/or work to exceed them, and I commend her for that. But even if her chops were on point, the character she plays in The Last Showgirl isn’t the least bit engaging, because she spent the whole film — and her whole life — deluding herself that her burlesque show and her work in general somehow wasn’t sexual in nature, and refused to do anything to better her situation, instead becoming passive and entitled until the day the axe fell and blaming unseen men for her predicament.
In The Substance, Moore’s character, Elisabeth Sparkle (yes, it’s a silly name, but you get used to it) is active in her own story and has full agency throughout. That’s why she’s up for Best Actress and has already won the Globe, not that I put too much stock into that chicanery. There’s certainly a discussion to be had about what her finest role was, and this is definitely in the conversation, but this isn’t a case where she came out of nowhere after never pulling off something amazing. This is more akin to Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems, a perfect storm moment where we all get to see just how capable they’ve always been, just needing the right part to truly show it off.
So, to the actual story, now that I’ve talked your ear off about why I threw my schedule into flux for it. Sparkle is a stable but somewhat faded celebrity, hosting a weekly exercise program on network TV long after the peak of her fame (the film opens with a clever montage of making her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame then watching it fall into disrepair while tourists and fans go from cheering her to barely remembering why she was a big name in the first place), and has just hit her 50th birthday. She takes a major hit to her self-esteem, however, when she overhears the network’s sleazy producer, Harvey (Dennis Quaid, clearly a stand-in for Harvey Weinstein), angrily decide to fire her for being too old and look for a new, younger, hotter talent. Distraught, she gets into a car accident, and while being examined at the hospital, the handsome male nurse (Robin Greer), discreetly gives her a flash drive for the titular Substance, saying she’d be a good candidate.
The drive shows a promotional video, offering a chance to make a new, better version of yourself. Elisabeth is initially dismissive, but due to her desperation for a return to her previous charmed life, she orders the kit (which she has to fetch from a shady-looking alleyway storage locker that only opens up enough for you to crawl inside; again, great imagery). The step-by-step process includes a single-use “Activator” injection to create an “Other Self” from her “Matrix” body, a second Activator vial (presumably in case the first is damaged), IV food bags for each side, a “Stabilizer” apparatus that requires spinal fluid from Elisabeth, and needles and tubes for a “Switch,” which the kit says must be done every seven days without exception. What could possib-lye go wrong?
Elisabeth takes the shot and immediately begins convulsing. Within moments, in a sequence reminiscent of An American Werewolf in London, she “births” a younger clone of herself from her own back. This newer model dubs herself “Sue” (Margaret Qualley), and secures the job to be Elisabeth’s replacement on the aerobics show, becoming an instant A-lister.
Things predictably go well at first. Sue’s form allows Elisabeth to relive her glory days, and she’s even able to convince Harvey and his lecherous gaze to accommodate biweekly absences when she has to switch back to being normal Elisabeth. However, one night, in the throws of intoxicated ecstasy, Sue realizes it’s time to switch, but opts for another fluid draw from Elisabeth to stabilize one more time, delaying the switch by a few hours. Elisabeth wakes up with no memory of what happened and notices an unsightly deformity on her index finger. Asking the Substance providers if it can be reversed, the creepy voice on the other end of the phone (Yann Bean) informs her that it cannot, and advises her to find a balance so that she never misses a switch again, emphasizing (for the first of many times) that there is no difference between the two women. “You are one,” as he is often forced to repeat.
This is what eventually drives the plot and the scares. A hybrid of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and a tremendous metaphor on addiction, Sue starts to take over Elisabeth’s life, prolonging her existence at the rapid decline of Elisabeth’s body, with neither party able to remember or communicate with each other. An almost complete dissociation occurs, with them sharing a subconscious but never full consciousness, giving both actresses free reign to go as absolutely batshit as they want (how Qualley didn’t get a Supporting Actress nod is beyond me).
All the while, Fargeat handles the overall production masterfully. The film is nominated for Best Picture, Actress, Director, and Original Screenplay in addition to Makeup (I’ll get to that in a second), but honestly, you could have easily thrown in Cinematography, Editing, and Production Design. The studio where Elisabeth/Sue works is a direct homage to the hallways in the Overlook Hotel (one of many Stanley Kubrick inspirations). Contrast that with the porcelain white bathroom where the dirty work is done and the luxurious apartment where they live. There are plenty of mirrors about the place, but in most cases, identical sets were built with plain glass (or no glass) for them, so that Moore and Qualley could simply perform on the other side and the camera could move with them. It’s fucking seamless. Much of the effects are practical, meaning the few digital effects can be easily edited in, allowing the viewer to bridge the gap between the real and the uncanny with no loss in the visceral experience. You also get a ton of thematic credibility from the combination of Harvey and his ilk’s predatory power dynamic and the use of a fish-eye lens so that he can get so uncomfortably close to Elisabeth and Sue’s POV. Telling a woman to smile more is on the nose, but it’s made almost miraculously funny and ironic when her teeth are literally falling out. Speaking of irony, just for fun (and possibly as a means to foreshadow death and decay), when Elisabeth is being fired by Harvey at a restaurant, Fargeat literally puts a black fly in her chardonnay. Chef kiss on that one!
But above and beyond all that is the makeup and gore effects. The vast majority of the body horror we see in this movie is done with prosthetics and makeup, and it is absolutely stunning. There’s an obvious influence of David Cronenberg and Tom Savini, but the film forges its own path. There’s an odd sort of logic to all the awful effects that Sue’s prolonged existence has on Elisabeth, from varicose veins to hair loss to full-on deformities, culminating in an ending that truly has to be seen to be believed. From the moment Sue is “born,” everything progresses in a way that will gross you out, but it also makes sense, especially because a lot of it has to do with Elisabeth and Sue’s nude bodies, shown in ways that are graphic but largely non-sexual. Even Sue’s first moment is carefully designed, as her breasts are prosthetics glued to her (she’s joked that the team gave her “the rack of a lifetime, just not my lifetime”) as a means of showing what the male gaze idealizes in them. I’m honestly wondering how I’ll even be able to get footage for when I do my video for this category, because I don’t even know what I can show or what could possibly be available on YouTube already, and I kind of don’t want to spoil the surprise for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet.
This just blew me away. Not only did Fargeat and her crew dedicate themselves to spending the time and money to get this stuff right with practical effects rather than cheap CGI, but they still got it all done for about $17 million. This is just another reason why great films know how to pay the right people properly without breaking the bank, giving lie to all the big budget bullshit we hear from major studios. It’s more than enough to gloss over the few nitpicks you could easily have (no snow would ever fall in Hollywood to cover up Sparkle’s star, there’s no explanation for how the dissociation works or how a blood transfusion also transfers consciousness, no one actually watches workout shows anymore, etc.), because even they fall under suspension of disbelief when compared to the big monster moments and the central dilemma at the heart of this shockingly human story. That’s how important getting this aspect as perfect as possible was.
Because honestly, who among us wouldn’t be tempted? Obviously things go wrong because this is a magical panacea from a secretive source, and quality control would naturally take a back seat to profit, especially if misuse can lead to death and dismemberment. But if you were told that you could create a younger, sexier version of yourself that you get to live inside every other week, wouldn’t you at least consider it? Even before we get to the consequences of getting high on your own supply of spinal taps, we all know it would be too good to be true, but there’d still be an allure, a curiosity, to see if you could do it safely and controlled, then age gracefully the other half of the time. Without even considering the vainglorious, image-obsessed world of Los Angeles and the entertainment industry (I joke that I’m a rock solid 10 in Wisconsin, but I’m an L.A. 2), wouldn’t you want to know if you could use this as a way to relive your youth? Wouldn’t you fantasize about a way to have more energy, more stamina, be fitter, have a more vigorous love life? We all would, at least to a point, because we’re all normal people with dreams and flaws.
But like so many other stories, The Substance shows the stark difference between fantasy and reality, even though it uses intentionally over-the-top grotesquerie to do it. There’s always a price for beauty (and fame), and sooner or later, the piper gets paid. The fact that Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and Carolie Fargeat have been able to express that fact to such jaw-dropping effect is a testament to the limitless potential film still has. In a year full of duds, this is my Everything Everywhere All at Once for 2024, a novel experience that reminds you what happens when you care enough to make something great instead of something profitable.
Grade: A
Join the conversation in the comments below! What film should I review next? Are you comfortable with graphic horror? Who brings a little girl to a show with topless showgirls? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) as well as Bluesky, and subscribe to my YouTube channel for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!
Originally published at http://actuallypaid.com on January 26, 2025.
