52 Films by Women Vol 8. 43. The Substance (Director: Coralie Fargeat)
At its second
screening in Cannes, writer-director Coralie Fargeat’s ‘living your best life’
body horror flick The
Substance had patrons heading
for the exit early. It is extreme – and none too subtle – about the extent to
which one should sacrifice oneself for the cause of reinvention, or more
particularly, to have a younger body to use as one shouldn’t. In her first
leading role in a horror film, the 1990s-star Demi Moore ‘puts her back’ – and
pretty much everything else - to enable a younger doppelganger, played by
Margaret Qualley, to be born. Expect this to be on Quentin Tarantino’s top ten
list for the year – but not Barack Obama’s.
Fargeat’s titles are
in block capitals and so is her filmmaking. Everything in this Hollywood set
Faustian drama is ratcheted to a higher volume, so much so that the foley
artist is listed among the main creative personnel alongside the editor,
production designer and cinematographer. Fargeat has watched Darren Aronofsky’s
Requiem for a Dream and taken note. Twenty years ago, Jennifer
Connolly, who starred in Dream, could have played Qualley’s part.
There is something
old-fashioned about The
Substance. It could have been
made any time in the past four decades. Moore’s character, Elizabeth Sparkle,
is a former award-winning movie star who appears on the Morning Show of an
unidentified channel to lead women in keep fit routines, à la Jane Fonda. After
one of her recordings, which ends like all the others with her caring
admonition, ‘take good care of yourselves’, she is forced to use the men’s room.
Whilst in a cubicle, she overhears the head of the network, Harvey (Dennis
Quaid, directed to play an unredeemable slimeball, who if told he was an MCP,
would probably think you were referring to parking) telling someone while he is
taking a piss, that ‘she’s got to go’. Fargeat uses deep focus a lot and has
Quaid walk towards the camera and fill the screen with his face as he uses his
handsfree cellular device while parting his zip and shaking his swizzle,
complaining about Elizabeth. Fargeat doesn’t have Harvey refer to her name –
that would be too easy a ‘set up, poke’. Rather he refers to the need for
someone new. Besides ‘at fifty’, he begins. At fifty, one usually starts the
bidding at an auction, but Harvey is referring to Elizabeth’s ‘use by’ date,
not being a fan of either The
Golden Girls or the original Gloria starring Gena Rowlands.
Seeing the writing
is on the wall, or more accurately, that her face is being torn from a
billboard, Elizabeth is distracted whilst driving and subsequently hit by an
oncoming vehicle, filmed from inside Elizabeth’s car, so we experience every
roll with her. By a miracle, she emerges unscathed and is about to be
discharged when the younger of two consultants pinches the skin near her spine.
‘You’ll make a good candidate,’ he tells her. Elizabeth responds with a ‘sorry,
what?’ look. In her handbag she finds a USB stick as long as a pregnancy test
with black casing and words in white block capitals, ‘The Substance’. Wrapped
around it is a handwritten note: ‘it changed my life’.
Pictured: 'Candidate' Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore, hands pictured) opens her no-going-back trial pack of The Substance in the horror comedy, 'The Substance', written and directed by Coralie Fargeat. Still courtesy of Mubi (US, UK)
Plugging the USB
stick into her smart television, Elizabeth watches the promo, which could
practically be the teaser trailer of the film, complete with similar block
capitals. ‘Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself? Younger?
Beautiful? More perfect?’ It entices her to life a fuller life. One person
split into two. Seven days as one person. Seven days as you are now. You must
switch. Remember you are one. Nothing about ethical testing.
Right at the
beginning of the film we see an uncooked egg on a blue surface. A syringe is
administered. One yoke becomes two. In the next sequence we see Elizabeth
Sparkle’s Hollywood star being laid, the one night when Elizabeth was the
centre of attention, the days after when fans worshipped the sign, then the
years of indifference. ‘Wasn’t she in that movie?’ Finally one passerby drops
his burger on Elizabeth Sparkle’s name, scooping it up to eat later.
Elizabeth’s star is besmirched by tomato sauce. Lunch with Harvey cannot fix it
– cue close up of his mouth gobbling prawn cocktails, surely one of the most
unpleasant meals to consume with your fingers, a single prawn squeezed into a
limp shape, accompanied by a squelching sound. Having told her she’s too old,
he leaves the table to greet a very old man, whose show was a hit. The unsubtle
message: men in the public eye can be old, women cannot.
Having initially
thrown the USB stick in the garbage – Fargeat places her camera at the bottom
of the bin to record it hitting bottom – Elizabeth retrieves it and makes the
call. Having told the voice at the other end where she lives, the voice gives
her an address and a commandment: ‘write it down’. In the mail the next day,
Elizabeth receives a plastic card bearing the number ‘503’.
The address, 35
North Alley Drive, has its name painted above a metal shutter. Elizabeth uses
her card. The shutter only rises a quarter way. Elizabeth has to crouch under
it to enter the building. Good job she gave all those exercise classes. Inside,
she walks down a graffiti-filled corridor to a room with a set of safe deposit
boxes. There she collects her supply contained in a single, fairly large box.
Naturally, Elizabeth
opens it, pulling a red thread. After sheet one, there’s the single use starter
kit. Then there’s the stabilizer, then food, your food, the other food.
Elizabeth, fully naked, goes her large, white tiled bathroom to inject herself.
Initially, she feels nothing. Then she collapses in the bathroom, slamming
herself against the hard floor. I winced. Then Elizabeth has an experience,
partly illustrated through super-imposition – one image of Elizabeth on top of
another.
I almost forgot
about Fred, who knew Elizabeth when she was in tenth grade, forcing her to
feign recognition. He gives her his number, writing on the back of some ropey
medical test results. Before handing it too her, he drops the piece of paper in
a puddle. Apologetic, Fred picks it up - cue pleasurable groans from the
audience - and gives it to her. Fred is another signifier of just how much
Elizabeth’s sparkle has faded.
So Elizabeth is on
the floor and her spine cracks open, and out pops some flesh. In the meantime,
not one but two eyes appear in the same eye socket, one replacing the other.
Then, from inside Elizabeth’s back, as if she were a living Matryoshka doll, a
younger naked woman appears. Elizabeth is no longer conscious. Her replacement
looks at her naked body in the mirror and approves. After applying the
stabilizer, to prevent nose bleeds, the young woman considers the woman on the
bathroom floor. She has to sew up her host, pinching Elizabeth’s skin just as
the consultant did and applying one stitch of thick black thread at a time.
Another example of
Elizabeth’s fall – the newspaper advertisement asking, ‘are you the next
Elizabeth Sparkle?’ An invitation for 18 – 30-year-old women to audition.
The younger woman’s
work is done. She needs clothes, not that she approves of Elizabeth’s wardrobe
– or even her leotard – as we discover later. She also remembers the ad,
naturally fished out of the self-same trash can.
Pictured: Personality doing the splits. Sue (Margaret Qualley) in the Hollywood set horror comedy, 'The Substance', written and directed by Coralie Fargeat. Still courtesy of Mubi (US, UK)
But what about her
name? The young woman sewed Elizabeth up so naturally she’s a Sue. Fargeat
presents two guys disapproving of a young woman who auditions, wishing that a
certain other body part was on her face ‘instead of her nose’, the last word
pronounced with maximum distaste. Then
Sue steps in, dressed in a pink revealing leotard, and the men are silenced.
Reader, they hired
her.
At this point, I
wondered, when is it going to get interesting? Which is to say, when is it
going to go wrong? After seven days, Elizabeth picks up her life and has to
collect the next box of food. This seven days on, seven days off doesn’t
conform to the demands of television or sex. It isn’t long before Sue abuses
her partner, forgetting the commandment, ‘two are one’.
What’s about spinal
tap between ladies, re-filling vial number four? Elizabeth discovers the
consequences. Sue also remodels Elizabeth’s bathroom, upsetting the neighbour,
until they meet, and he can barely contain himself. ‘Elizabeth left. I’m the
new tenant.’ Sue tells him. He offers his own toolkit. Sue can manage just
fine.
Fargeat pitches the
film at the level of black comedy, with a sequence involving a chicken leg,
still with meat on it, that Sue pulls from her own belly button. However, Sue’s
attitude towards the seven-day rule has a negative impact on Elizabeth’s life
that causes her to stir her coffee in a disturbed way, then invite Fred for a
date before looking at herself in the mirror, then watching herself steadily
decline, at one point straightening a bone.
Just as Sue’s choice
of men disturbs Elizabeth, so Sue objects to Elizabeth eating like a slob,
leaving so much waste around the apartment to take care of, papering over the
windows and television.
The film builds to a
New Year’s Eve show. Elizabeth has had enough and orders a termination. Sue has
other ideas. There is an extremely violent showdown as both women are awake at
the same time. Sue has a kick that can propel Elizabeth across a room.
The finale isn’t
just violent. The winner of the grudge match gets increasingly desperate. What
we see is a full-on shower of blood – and this is a film with multiple shower
scenes.
I started to imagine
Fargeat being upset that Julia Ducournau got all the attention for Titane, then taking body horror into her own hands.
In the event,
Fargeat earned the biggest laughs with Elizabeth’s leaving gift, a recipe book
for French cooking that reduces Gallic cuisine to some fairly crude choices.
This in turn drives Elizabeth into the kitchen to prepare blood sausage – yum.
The French audience were undoubtedly tickled.
Greeted with almost
equal enthusiasm is the unique way in which Elizabeth’s Hollywood square is
reclaimed, though by this point, Fargeat could have cut to black at least five
or ten minutes before she does. I asked myself, how long will she drag out the ending?
At no point does
Fargeat school men to try and make them better. Rather she is critical of
women’s behaviour, the extent to which they accept the status quo.
The Substance is a cautionary tale, but it is unclear
whether fans of modern horror will embrace it. They might find it too crude. At
any rate, it was unlikely to win the Palme D’Or. Greta Gerwig has more
sophisticated taste, choosing instead, erm, a film about an exotic dancer (Sean
Baker’s Anora).
Reviewed at Grand
Theatre Lumiere, Cannes, France, Monday 19 May 2024, 11:30am screening
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