“Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself? Younger, more beautiful, more perfect?” asks an advert for the ultimate self-improvement drug in Coralie Fargeat’s visceral body horror The Substance.
As plastic surgery, Botox, and an obsession with youth become the norm for women in the entertainment industry, the Cannes 2024 Best Screenplay winner artfully articulates the sheer absurdism and brutality of society’s oppressive beauty standards.
On her 50th birthday, fading starlet and TV personality Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is dropped by her sexist manager (Dennis Quaid) to make way for younger talent, causing her to plummet into despair as she begins to scrutinise every inch of her ageing body.
After injecting a sickly green black-market substance that promises the creation of a younger, ‘more perfect’ version of herself, Sue (Margaret Qualley) emerges from Sparkle’s body, and the two must learn to share their existence, switching every other week in order to live.
What unfolds can only be described as an absurd bloodbath of horror, as the symbiosis between the two comes crashing down and the desire for perfection drives Sue to abuse the rules of their shared life.
Fargeat seldom stops for a breath, driving her film to a level of intensity which expertly captures the desperation of women who fall short of oppressive expectations.
Moore and Qualley complement the pace with powerful performances, both embracing full-frontal nudity and putting their bodies out into to the very world the film seeks to critique.
Though the casting of Moore (who doesn’t appear to have a single wrinkle on her face) as a woman deemed to have fading looks could seem out of touch, it perfectly illustrates that, no matter what a woman looks like, she can still be driven to feel inadequate by impossible beauty norms.
The Substance has all the hallmarks of a feminist film championing body positivity and halfway through, a predictable happy ending about self-acceptance seems on the horizon.
But its third act completely subverts expectations, descending into a full-scale body horror, complete with blood, gore, and chaos.
Fargeat expertly satirises the grotesque and painful lengths women go to in obtaining the ‘ideal’ body, collaborating with prosthetics and makeup effects designer Pierre-Olivier Persin to create visuals which hark back to classic 1980s body horrors like Basket Case.
In doing so, it provides a refreshing break from popular feminist films of the past few years – think Barbie – which often diminish the complexity of women’s experiences in a bid to remain palatable and optimistic.
The film’s unashamed descent into ugliness and absurdism is a powerful slap in the face to traditional beauty norms and its horrifying end is sure to leave audiences in a stunned silence.
Somehow, it manages to leave women simultaneously grateful for youth and thankful to age naturally.
The Substance is in cinemas now. Image provided by Organic Publicity / Mubi
