The Substance

Original Title: The Substance
Year: 2024
Director: Coralie Fargeat
Screenplay: Coralie Fargeat
Genre: Horror/Sci-Fi
Cast: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid

Have you ever dreamed of a better version of yourself? More beautiful, younger, more perfect. Lost beauty and youth can be regained through a trigger, a chemical substance. Youth and old age, the double that will bring consequences.

Seven years after her stunning Revenge, Coralie Fargeat returns with The Substance to delve into themes of beauty and youth. I say “returns” because in her short film Reality+, she had already experimented with this concept of transformation and fragmentation, raising the question: what if we could modify ourselves through an app? Imagine a world full of models, all physically perfect, yet fully aware they are not when time runs out. The Substance is no exception.

Plot of The Substance

Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), a former movie star, is fired from the aerobics show she hosts because she’s now too old. Youth and freshness are needed. She learns of a top-secret project involving a substance that, once injected into the body, will allow you to relive lost youth in the form of another version of yourself.

That version is Sue (Margaret Qualley), but there’s a rule: one week for both. Breaking this rule will bring consequences, as “You are one.”

Considerations

Coralie Fargeat bluntly portrays the harsh reality of the entertainment world. Elisabeth is still a beautiful woman, though older, but beauty is not enough. The aerobics show director, Harvey (Dennis Quaid), lets her go, as she represents the past in this Beverly Hills, seemingly clean but filthy beneath the surface.

Fargeat’s direction is clear and bright, with Kubrickian corridors and female bodies filmed in such a sensual and sexual way that they manage to be both graceful and disturbing. Sue’s behavior slowly changes: from pure youth, she rots inside, creating a mother-daughter-like relationship that flips into a witch and Snow White dynamic.

This film returns to the roots of horror cinema, paying homage to Brian Yuzna’s Society, blending David Cronenberg‘s body horror with the sensual cinema of Paul Verhoeven, and adding a touch of Death Becomes Her by Robert Zemeckis. The result is a streamlined, unburdened film that, despite its length, flows smoothly.

In conclusion, seeking lost beauty can be dangerous, because what Coralie Fargeat ultimately tells us is that it’s better to accept yourself as you are and what you become.

FLAVIO CAMPANACCI