Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid, Edward Hamilton-Clark, Gore Abrams, Oscar Lesage, Christian Erikson, Robin Greer, Tom Morton, Hugo Diego Garcia, Yann Bean, Daniel Knight, Jonathan Carley, Akil Wingate.
Satire does not have to leave the audience with laughter echoing around them, thighs slapped raw, grins as wide as they are knowingly wise, sometimes it comes with the firm slap of recognition, it comes with anger attached, it displays unknown emotions to the very fore and each time the effect of mockery hits home so hard, with venom, that we are allowing others to live in a world filled with delusion, with image that is unsubstantial, and the guilt of it all is reflected in the awful truth, we believe that we are too old, and too ugly, to be of any use to the world.
To be grossed out by the image of the human body is something of a personal nature, we all find certain parts not to our taste, appendages or features we would alter and change given time and money, but the message behind the graphic horror The Substance is one of extreme caricature, of brilliance in performance, and one that boldly insists that those caught up in a performance that relies on looks to sell themselves, one that covets a body of a certain standard is not only subjecting themselves to others to portray a sense of attainable sex, but to the disease of expectation, of giving into the selfish belief that you can have it all forever if you are only willing to share your life with the one person who will resent you for all the Botox and plastic surgery…yourself.
The Substance brings Demi Moore back to her rightful place as an actor of great renown, performing in what is arguably her most important role of her life, certainly the most demanding, and one that shows the fragility of femininity in such a way that it collides with her role of Jules in St. Elmo’s Fire, the bitter ends of conquered youth and older, neglected woman driven to desperation as she sees her life and dreams, and image fading into obscurity.
It is with fascination, a regard for the damnation of television studio heads and the distasteful effigies of male human interest, roundly given a sense of perfection by Dennis Quaid as he makes the most of belittling the character of Elizabeth Sparkle and extoling the virtues, with gruesome slimy overtones, of the latest face on the block, Sue.
Primarily The Substance, written with a sincere exacting eye of observation by Coralie Fargeat, asks of the viewer what would they do if offered the ability to share their life with somebody younger but who had all your memories, an experiment which builds on the insecurities of age and frustration, with just a simple injection every day; but ends up crucially revealing the revulsion, almost Frankenstein’s Monster like, a call back even to the reveal at the end of the 1925 film Phantom of The Opera where the true face of dying self-pity ugliness, of the pathetic creature is laid bare.
The Substance is a rare film of any of those within the horror genre, one filled with so much blood and gore that isn’t derived from a screened monster, but instead one that mirrors society in the 21st Century, the quick fix, the ease of a drug dependent mask of respectability; The Substance makes it absolutely who the real monsters are, it is ourselves.
Ian D. Hall