By Matthew Moorcroft

Highest Recommendation

• Directed by Coralie Fargeat
• Starring Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid, Christian Erickson
• R

Immediately after walking out of The Substance for the first time with my large crowd of festival goers, it felt like I was walking out of a concert. Adrenaline pumping, blood racing. I rush home to try and get some kind of thoughts out, anything at all, wanting to tell the world exactly what the hell I just witnessed in the large theater. And now, nearly a month later, I finally have the words to try and explain myself.

This is not director Coralie Fargeat’s first rodeo. Previously having done the great – and wonderfully violent – Revenge nearly seven years ago, it’s clear that The Substance is meant to be the big, ballsy follow up. It’s budget is larger, it’s ambitions higher, and just like Revenge is a throwback picture, looking back to the exploitation films of the 70s and 80s for inspiration just as much as modern film conventions. In the case of Revenge, it was the rape-and-revenge flick. In the case of The Substance, it’s the body horror, which we haven’t seen a true blue version of in quite a while. Or at the very least, not like this.

The Substance is utterly phenomenal. It’s honestly pitch perfect in a lot of ways, it’s purposefully campy tone and minimal usage of dialogue evoking a film that is far more focused on imagery, tone, and ideas over large amounts of exposition. The eerily simple premise – one where an aging actress, desperate to conform to body standards, find a black market drug that has disastrous consequences – can be morphed and torn around to meet whatever kind of metaphor or reading you want. Is it a lecture about the treatment of aging actresses in Hollywood? Absolutely it is. Is it a film about how the high body standards that we’ve inflicted on society affect everybody, no matter who they are? Also yes. Is it also about how gross and nasty the human body is cause good god? Indubitably.

Mark my words, if The Substance is anything it’s fucking gross as shit. And that’s, frankly, the best thing about it. Fargeat certainly has ideas on her mind – that much clear – but she also remembers to deliver the goods each time and The Substance absolutely delivers the goddamn goods. The last 30 minutes of this need to be seen to be believed, taking it’s premise to the most insane logical endpoint while also never failing to maintain it’s ultra campy, impossibly entertaining vibe.

And yet, I think maybe the real triumph of The Substance is how great it is everywhere else still. Even taking away the insane gore, the gross makeup work, and the ludicrously entertaining finale, there is a great old school quality the look of the film that makes it stand out. All of the places look like they came from the 60s and 70s in their aesthetics, and Elizabeth herself feels like a movie star from a bygone era. But Sue, the younger, more confident version of herself, is distinctly modern, and that clashes hard. Out with the old, in with the new, as they say. There is a post-modern aspect to The Substance that is hard to ignore on viewing, using iconography and imagery from prior horror films – particularly that of Cronenberg and Kubrick – to say something brand new about the state of the industry and how it treats it’s ever aging persona.

And it’s not subtle, at all, but it doesn’t need to be. When you have a career best Demi Moore raging and ranting into a mirror about how she isn’t pretty enough (despite the fact Moore’s casting is intentional as “the most gorgeous woman you’ve ever seen”), sometimes that’s all you need to get your point across. Moore’s performance is a great mix of fearless, unflattering, and pure showmanship, unafraid to get down and dirty while also keeping herself composed for a long chunk of the runtime. She’s only really matched by an equally excellent – and likely undersung – Margaret Qualley, who has to do the unenviable task of being her own character while also keeping in line with Moore’s own portrayal, a line she walks excellently. Much of the last bit of the film is due to her and her final moments as Sue are some of the most devastating images in the film emotionally, she’s utterly fantastic.

The Substance will certainly be also deeply affecting for many people who may see themselves in Elizabeth’s shoes. There was a group of middle aged women who I was sitting in front of during my screening, and while they were certainly hootering and hollering and having a blast like everyone else, it was clear that their reactions to the smaller stuff – the comments about expiration dates, the makeup removal scene, the constant fear of aging – was that it was hitting them on a level that I really couldn’t understand, at least at the moment. You can gage a lot about the quality of a film’s ideas by simply looking outwards instead of inwards, and The Substance works beautifully outwards.

I’m sure that many films will continue to come out as awards season continues, and the rest of the year has been filled with wonderful delights, but for my money The Substance remains at the top of the pack for the year. It’s a deliciously gory time at the movies with the bite to match, unafraid to eschew modern conventions of decency for a greater point while also making sure the audience is wildly entertained and satisfied. If you go in and expect something smart, topical, and introspective, you’ll get that. But if you are solely here to see what the hype is about and want to know if it lives up to it’s reputation, let it be heard that it absolutely does and then some. Holy cow!