Written and Directed by Coralie Fargeat
**** (four stars)
RATED R
It is not often, especially these days, when the movies really step up to the cinematic plate and just go for it!
To begin this posting, I feel it necessary to return to a film experience, while brilliant, was one so disturbingly overwhelming that I strongly feel that it is one that I truly can never return to it for a second viewing regardless of its excellence. The film in question is Darren Aronofsky's "Requiem For A Dream" (2000), and for the uninitiated, the proceedings chronicles various drug addictions between four interconnected characters. The film's final third, entitled "Winter," is where this already stylized, distraught film descends into nightmare for its quartet.
Arguably, the most tragic figure is Sara, portrayed in a fearless swan dive of a vanity free performance by Ellen Burstyn. Throughout the film, we have watched her succumb to the addiction of reclaiming her youth by way of a crash diet and amphetamine pills as she wants to fit into a favorite, yet years unworn, red dress for a scheduled appearance upon her favorite game show. Over the course of the film, Sara's energy waxes and wanes, she increases her pill usage in order to wear the dress and she eventually is fraught with drug induced hallucinations, building with terror. Aronofsky pulls out all of the stops with a relentless audio/visual dynamism that is impossible to turn your eyes away from even as you are unquestionably horrified. The experience worked me over and then some! Remembering it now as write is sending chills up and down my spine as I can still remember the drilling music, the razor sharp editing and undeniably Burstyn as Sara disintegrating before our very eyes.
Dear readers, I recalled that movie memory for you because I feel compelled to have to first explain to you that I was extremely trepidatious with the thought of seeing Coralie Fargeat's "The Substance." While the tenor of the reviews have been quite high, the reported intensity of the work and all of the body horror gore contained therein, made me wonder that perhaps even as I was curios, it might be an experience just not designed for my temperament. That being said, my curiosity overtook any sense of fear I was harboring and I took the plunge.
At a time when the motion picture industry is clearly uninterested in taking any cinematic risks at the expense of what they feel to be the sure things of sequels, prequels, remakes, reboots and re-imaginings, every once in awhile, something comes along that defies the norm and loudly announces itself with unapologetically bold strokes.
Coralie Fargeat's "The Substance" is a visceral, voluminous and volcanic experience. Fearless in conceit and execution, Fargeat takes the core of a cautionary fable and utilizes it to unleash a bombastic Hollywood satire, as well as a take no prisoners diatribe against unrealistic to impossible beauty standards and the disqualification of women in society, especially past a certain age. Most of all, Fargeat has helmed an enormously felt howl, a wrathful, rapacious scream into the unforgiving maw of a world that teaches girls and women to hate themselves. It is gruesome. It is grotesque. It scratches, claws and gnashes its cinematic teeth into a frenzy.
And it is also a film of superbly high achievement. It is with out question one of the best films of 2024.
"The Substance" stars an astounding Demi Moore as Hollywood legend, but now fading celebrity, Elizabeth Sparkle, who, as the film begins, hosts a morning television exercise show akin to the type Jane Fonda created during the 1980s. On her 50th birthday, lecherous, disgusting executive Harvey (!!), enthusiastically played by Dennis Quaid, fires Elizabeth from her show due to her age, and immediately begins the pursuit for someone younger, hotter and better to lead the program.
Shortly thereafter, Elizabeth comes across a black market product known as "The Substance," a cell replicating liquid, once injected, will allow her to birth a younger version of herself. Yet, the rules are strict. While effectively another entity, the two beings share the same consciousness. But, while one is active in the world for seven days, the other will remain comatose during that same time period. After seven days, the two must switch places for the next seven days and the cycle continues with full adherence to respecting the connective balance between the two.
Unfortunately, Elizabeth's other self, who names herself Sue (Margaret Qualley), very rapidly takes Elizabeth's old job, becomes a media sensation and becomes increasingly reluctant to switch places back with her older self, which then produces terrifying side effects.
To reveal much more would certainly spoil the full effect of Coralie Fargeat's "The Substance," but I am here to report that its impact is unapologetically pummeling. At nearly two and a half hours, Fargeat unveils a narrative furiously propelled by its own rocket fueled nightmare logic. It possesses high style and superlative confidence in itself. While subtlety is not on the menu whatsoever, it would be mistaken to suggest that Fargeat has not ensured "The Substance" exists without nuance or even poetry.
In fact, I absolutely loved Fargeat's usage of a variety of visual motifs through the film from eggs, eyes, mirrors, all manner of spheres, palm trees, to even the shape and form of the human (notably female) posterior. The film's opening sequence, starring an overhead shot of Elizabeth Sparkle's Hollywood Walk Of Fame Star, is a gorgeous montage of the trajectory of Elizabeth's career, from its rise to its Winter stages. To that end, I loved how the film's final shot perfectly double ends itself to that opening, making for a final image that is simultaneously disgusting and undeniably profound.
At this point, I am compelled to mention the film's level of violence and gore, which is exceedingly high. A strong stomach is encouraged as it is not for the faint of heart as we are subjected to an orchestra of bodily fluids, viscera, entrails and an amount of blood that could rival anything we have already seen in the likes of Brian De Palma's "Carrie" (1976) and Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" (1980), two films in particular "The Substance" references and pays homage. Even with its usage of practical make up effects, which recalls the stomach churning works of David Cronenberg's "Scanners" (1981) and "The Fly" (1986) as well as John Carpenter's "The Thing" (1982), I will say that the violence in the film is not end to end or even gratuitous to the point of stretching beyond tasteful limits, so to speak (but I do concede that will depend upon your own personal tastes and limitations certainly--if you fear needles, I recommend that you stay away).
As wrenching as it all is, for me, the unreality of the gore--especially during the film's biggest swings in the absolutely wild final third--made it a tad easier to regard. I never had to leave the theater and recompose myself, if that means anything. Coralie Fageat ensures that her gore usage is riveted to the demands of her story, characters and overall themes and with that, her film never felt to be exploitative.
For that matter, for all of the copious female nudity on screen from both Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, Fargeat's cinematic gaze is also never exploitative and when it is sexualized, it is for stinging satirical commentary. Again, her usage of mirrors and the amount of screen time that the characters of both Elizabeth and Sue regard themselves, whether in wonder or horror, speaks volumes towards Fargeat's central themes. As Sue galivants during her time in the world, racking up attention and adoration, while Elizabeth remains comatose, after the two switch places, Elizabeth regards Sue's continuous victories--mirroring the ones she used to have when she was younger--while trapped in a self imposed isolation where her sense of inadequacy, loneliness and self-loathing only grows in power.
One of the film's most striking and devastating sequences is one when Elizabeth, readying herself for a date with a former high school classmate who once (and still) adores her, finds herself in a position I would think absolutely anyone can relate with. It is a sequence without dialogue. Just Elizabeth struggling to reconcile how she is viewed by this classmate with how she views herself. She alters her outfits and makeup over and again, hoping to improve but only making everything worse, including her dwindling self-esteem.
Time is literally ticking away--for her proposed date, certainly. But her sense of relevance and mortality, definitely. What begins with a nervous confidence ends with a face and hair shredding fury as what we are witnessing is the very emotional, psychological violence Elizabeth, and therefore, all of us, especially women, are all doing to ourselves to try and attain a status that does not exist but are constantly being told that it is. In Elizabeth's case, a massive billboard of Sue that faces (and therefore, taunts) her points directly at her mammoth window outside of her dream world apartment. It is just one remarkable sequence in a film that keeps topping itself and Demi Moore is equal to every single moment of it.
I am of an age when I can remember Demi Moore before I even really knew her name as she portrayed ace reporter Jackie Templeton on television's "General Hospital." I have grown up with her in many regards, in films I have loved as well as others that I have not. But, over so many of these years, she has remained a strong presence that I have rooted for, much like her acting contemporaries. Having Demi Moore in "The Substance" is a masterstroke considering all that we know about Moore's history in the public eye, especially her status as a sex symbol, grafted onto her whether she wanted it or not.
Considering the subject matter of "The Substance," I would think that any actress could have performed this role. That said, Demi Moore grabs onto Fargeat's vision firmly, completely and like Ellen Burstyn in "Requiem For A Dream," it is a performance without a trace of vanity and a go for broke commitment to absolutely everything required of this story and character. Much like Natalie Portman's blistering performance in Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan" (2010), Demi Moore has to travel to despairing depths and layers of Hell...and believe me, she takes us with her. If the rumblings prove themselves to be true come awards season, I would be thrilled if Demi Moore's superlative, staggering work here were to be recognized.
Margaret Qualley, I feel possesses an equally difficult role and frankly, with even less dialogue and she is compulsively watchable. Reminding me tremendously of the Replicant characters from Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" (1982), and even Emma Stone's character in Yorgos Lanthimos' audacious "Poor Things" (2023), the character of Sue emerges into the world without any of Elizabeth's psychological baggage, even though they share the same consciousness. Sue functions without empathy, essentially soulless, driven by her narcissistic desires regardless of the dire consequences. Yet, over the course of the film, the same insecurities that hinder Elizabeth rise rapidly in Sue, providing her motivation to also remain relevant and her refusal to be discarded by anyone, especially Elizabeth via means I won't discuss here so as not to produce spoilers.
Yes, there are clear allusions to the likes of Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937), Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "All About Eve" (1950) and Robert Zemeckis' "Death Becomes Her" (1992), but I wish to be clear about the following: Coralie Fargeat's "The Substance" is not another movie about two women fighting each other. As the shadowy, unnamed corporation that supplies the elixir extols and subsequently warns both Elizabeth and Sue: "Remember...You Are One."
Coralie Fargeat's "The Substance" is a film about one woman at war with herself. While Fargeat's rage against the patriarchal based expectations that lie within the male gaze is never let off of the proverbial hook (especially in the film's unleashed David Lynch-ian climax), she affords us the opportunity to see how that male gaze fuels the self gaze.
Elizabeth Sparkle's inability to accept herself arrives at a time when it is possible that she never really knew herself at all as she she spent her life in an industry feeding off of outside validation. It feels as if she has no friends or family...something real or tangible in the world that possesses a grounding security that the fleeting Hollywood machine is not interested in cultivating, especially for women. So, when all that she has achieved has been swiftly taken away, where does she turn? Her need for outside validation at the expense of any sense of self reflection or acceptance, all the way to the point where she willingly defies the natural law sends her on this odyssey, consequences be damned.
To that end, Sue appears as plastic as the mannequins she emulates and in a great touch, Fargeat never even gives Sue a last name, for why would these lascivious male Hollywood executives care about her identity when all they are looking for is a young, hot woman to fit the skimpy leotard? Sue plays the game to her advantage as far as she is able to take herself, again, without heart, conscience or consequence...but there is always a price to be paid.
During my college years, when I was majoring in Communication Arts and taking a film production class, I assisted my then girlfriend now wife with the filming of a Super 8 project of a deep personal prevalence. She titled her film "Seeing You See Me," and it was a work about body image and the level of self loathing that arrives when the person you are and see yourself as does not match with the images that confront you harboring a beauty standard that doesn't exist.
Her film concluded with a striking sequence, which I will call the "Binge and Purge" set piece. After wandering through a magazine shop filled with all manner of glamour and fashion magazines, she ends up at home surrounded by food, which we presume she will consume. She eventually enters her bathroom and kneels over the toilet. What is regurgitated are images from magazines, make up tools and even a small American flag. There is no dialogue. Just music and images. Her film was shown to the entire film production class at the request of our Professor and I vividly remember witnessing many female classmates openly weeping to sobbing...and a few of them even approached my then girlfriend now wife with variations of the same response: "That's exactly how I feel!"
I thought of my wife's college film quite often during Coralie Fargeat's "The Substance." Yes, Fargeat has delivered an extraordinary, visionary work that takes it all to the wall, bursts through and keeps going and is filled with all of the cinematic gifts--Editing, Cinematography, Sound Design, Art Direction, Music Score--in her full unwavering command. However, and trust me dear readers, this film is no exercise in style whatsoever.
In Coralie Fargeat's "The Substance," the pain, the horror and the rage is absolutely real.
No comments:
Post a Comment