Seeing Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance” on a big screen was by far one of the grossest experiences I’ve ever had.
From the opening sequence, consisting of a time-lapse of fading celebrity Elizabeth Sparkle’s, played by Demi Moore, Hollywood star, I knew I would spend the entire 141-minute runtime feeling deeply uncomfortable.
Her Hollywood star is trampled by tourists, ignored and then desecrated with a burger and fries complete with enough ketchup to be mistaken for a murder scene.
Elizabeth, a famous exercise instructor, is then fired from her job by the most obnoxious character I have ever encountered, a Hollywood producer expertly played by Dennis Quaid. He said that they need someone younger to be the new face of the show.
Shaken by the news, Elizabeth drives home distracted and ends up getting into a car accident. She goes to the hospital, where she is checked on by a pair of doctors and is miraculously unscathed and quickly permitted to go home.
One of the doctors slips a business card into her jacket pocket for a product called The Substance, which creates a perfect version of oneself through what appears in the instructional video to be some form of cellular division or mitosis.
The original body, referred to as the Matrix (Elizabeth), and the new body must switch consciousness every seven days through an elaborate ritual involving a mind-boggling amount of needles (which, just to mention, I am deathly afraid of).
This all starts fine and dandy – Elizabeth’s perfect form, named Sue, played by Margaret Qualley, auditions to replace Elizabeth in her new job and lands the part immediately, but she very quickly becomes a little too good at what she does.
Content Warning: This article contains graphic content.
Sue is an immediate hit, gaining rapid popularity both in and outside of the workplace. She quickly becomes the center of public attention and begins to reap the benefits of fame. She goes out clubbing with a group of friends after a magazine shoot, and then brings home a man named Troy, played by Oscar Lesage.
He is clearly only there with the intention to sleep with her, and that’s exactly what they do. The next morning, Sue and Elizabeth must switch back in order to maintain the balance, and Troy comes back to the house to get his motorcycle.
Even though Sue and Elizabeth are technically the same person, he treats Elizabeth significantly worse, calling her various derogatory terms and shouting at her to move out of the way when she, clearly confused, lingers in front of the bike for a few moments too long.
Between shooting for the cover of Vogue, clubbing with her new famous friends or hosting The Morning Show, Sue begins to overstep her seven days, stealing more time (and strange life-sustaining fluid) from Elizabeth, which causes her body to rapidly age and deteriorate.
It starts with a finger and quickly spreads over the rest of her body as Sue takes more and more time. This continues until Elizabeth is only a husk of her former self, withered so entirely that she’s barely able to move without excruciating pain.
Sue is invited to host the New Year’s Eve show, something Elizabeth did at the height of her career, and can’t deny the offer. She attempts to take more of the fluid from Elizabeth’s mangled body in an attempt to sustain herself but finds that she has been drained entirely dry.
Sue takes the substance once again, and instead of duplicating into another perfect version of herself, her cells begin to rapidly multiply. They truly become one, combined into a grotesque creature that is introduced with a dramatic title card as Monstero Elisasue.
Elisasue goes to the New Year’s Eve show, begging the audience to recognize her as she pleads, “It’s still me,” to anyone who will listen. The audience revolts and the end of the movie dives into full-blown ‘80s-style bloodbath madness.
Women scream and cover the eyes of their children and the camera dramatically zooms into the faces of audience members as they’re soaked in excessive amounts of blood. Elisasue leaves the stage, her body dissolving until only Elizabeth’s face is left behind.
Elizabeth, now vaguely resembling some sort of sea star, makes her way over to the Hollywood star from the beginning of the film and begins to hallucinate the applause of a massive audience.
She smiles, looks up at the sky and dissolves into a small pool of blood, which is quickly mopped up by a custodian the next morning.
Fargeat’s gruesome critique of Hollywood’s consistent ageism against women is as in-your-face disgusting as the issue at hand, highlighting the intense discomfort of being trapped within the male gaze.
Audio is expertly mixed to create visceral squelching, incessant chewing and the snapping of bones — enough to make even the most seasoned body horror fan’s skin crawl.
A particularly stand-out scene is when Sue pulls an entire chicken thigh out of her belly button, accompanied with the most horrific squelching noises I have ever heard.
The footage is caught on camera, and every member of the cast and crew watches intently as it is replayed multiple times in front of Sue, who begs to be given her dressing gown.
“The Substance” is not subtle — it demands to be heard, voicing the decades of anti-sexist protest of women in Hollywood into something so visceral that you just can’t help but look away.
“The Substance” was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Fargeat and Best Actress for Moore. The film is currently available for streaming on Mubi, and for rent on Amazon Prime and Apple TV.
Stridde can be reached at striddec0042@uwec.edu.
