SiftPop

by Cris Mora-Villa, Contributing Writer

There are times when I find myself contemplating a movie after seeing it for the first time, and I can’t begin to conjure what my prevailing thoughts are. It’s not an experience I arrive at very frequently, as it takes a certain kind of film with the right conditions to formulate such an effect. But whether it is a picture from decades past, or a more modern selection, there is nonetheless an appreciation on my end that such a unique afterglow can spawn from the art form of choice for which I have the most passion. And so it was not a major shock to me that Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance would encroach on that feeling, given every reaction I heard from its reception at this year’s Cannes Film Festival was some version of “The Substance is the most cracked movie of the decade and we are not worthy of its disgusting glory.” With this in mind, while I am not as rapturous as others seem to be regarding their own opinions on this movie, I can’t dispute any of those initial reactions that equate to designating Fargeat’s latest entry as the epitome of a wild time at the cinema.

I first became aware of who Fargeat was through two notable projects she directed before The Substance. The first being her feature debut, Revenge, as well as a short film she directed titled Reality+. I certainly enjoyed both of these for their individual merits, but that was mostly on a surface level, as neither one really fit the bill for the kind of movie that sticks with me. I did, however, come to find the two of them much more interesting after finishing The Substance. While Revenge  has moments of gratuitous violence, that gets taken to a whole other level here. In that way, the two movies remain as kindred spirits when accounting for their shared feminist perspective. Conversely, Reality+ offers a glimpse into Fargeat’s budding interests in the science fiction genre. The movie even shares a key piece of recurring imagery found in The Substance. Between the two works, Fargeat excellently displays her ability to structure a well-paced story, and there’s a clear versatility to her direction. That was good enough for me to keep an eye out on whatever she would decide to do next. While not surprising in hindsight, The Substance being her follow up makes all the sense in the world. Every ounce of prowess evident in her directorial debut, she somehow multiplies ad infinitum to create one of the most propulsive and energetic films I’ve ever seen within my lifetime. And yet, I’m not sure I’m ready to call the movie great.

Now for the sake of being transparent, I honestly don’t wish to spoil a single thing this movie has to offer, as I wholeheartedly believe anyone who is even marginally interested in watching it should go in knowing relatively little. Whether one comes to loathe or adore The Substance once the credits begin to roll is up to themselves, but the experience of seeing the picture is one worth preserving, as it is an honest to god spectacle (almost) like no other. And that’s the key word which perhaps encapsulates every thought I did have about the film as I walked out of the theater. Under the specific parameters of my own cinematic vocabulary, the term “spectacle” has taken on an ever-evolving meaning the longer I have gone on to watch movies as a means of entertainment. At one point in time, Captain America: Civil War and blockbusters of its ilk certainly fit the bill for what I perceived to be the premier example of grandiose, larger-than-life stories meant for the silver screen. Seven years worth of movies later, and that self-contained level of thinking would expand when ruminating on films like Duneor Babylon. With The Substance, the word “spectacle” changes shape yet again, only it now feels slightly more perverse and a little darker than before.

The film follows a weathered celebrity, Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), as she seeks to reclaim her fading youth via a mysterious new drug known as the Substance. What I felt I could infer about the movie upon taking in its premise was something that would loosely resemble or at least show signs of being inspired by the works of Darren Aronofsky and David Cronenberg. The respective histories of each filmmaker in both addiction and body horror did feel like appropriate territory for where I could imagine Fargeat would wish to explore following her debut. And I found that I was somewhat correct, as each of the aforementioned elements do recur at certain moments in the film. Where I faltered was in not presupposing Fargeat would end up fleshing out her own artistic sensibilities as much as she would. From the opening 10 minutes of the film, one can quickly get a sense of exactly what level Fargeat is operating on. What I also took away personally were two things. Absolutely nothing is off the table, and every “set piece” demands to be bigger and more overwhelming than the last. 

Fargeat seamlessly follows through on these ideas to the very end, but she is far from alone in doing so. While credit for the film’s screenplay lies solely with Fargeat, the forces which back her vision into creating the final onscreen product do play a massive role in and of themselves. I had never heard of any musician by the name of Raffertie, but his work on the movie’s score is as tantalizing as it is downright overbearing. Benjamin Kracun’s cinematography is as marvelous as it is punishing to glaze at. Nothing in The Substance’s marketing led me to believe it would rely on shadows or darkness given its ties to body horror, and it decidedly does not. Instead, we bear witness to a luminous and vibrant showcase of the horrid plasticity which coats every frame of the movie. On an aesthetic level, many of the movie’s visuals come together to resemble a rainbow, but not the earthly kind which originates from nature like in Panos Cosmatos’s Mandy. It’s instead purely synthetic, and may as well be stripped out of an episode of Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared. I truly can’t think of another movie where so many of its frames may as well be posters for the movie itself if they just tacked “The Substance” somewhere on the screen. When combined with the collectively outstanding efforts from the production, makeup, sound, and editing departments, the pieces are all too ready to fall into place, in turn arriving at Fargeat’s grotesque tour de force. 

The last major component of the film that merits a fair deal of credit is Moore. For as focused as Fargeat is on being stylish and presenting the audience with an experience-forward product, the possibility remains that if there is nothing at the center of the film worth investing in, it could all be in service of nothing. Moore prevents that from being the case. In large part due to her excellent performance, she’s able to adequately build out Elisabeth as a character and elicit feelings of empathy at the exact moment the movie requires her to. There is an extended sequence about midway through the film where Elisabeth is the only character on screen and without dialogue, exhibits one of the most relatable feelings I’ve experienced in a theater all year. For me, that is a truly invaluable reason for why I enjoyed the picture as much as I did. In spite of the potentially flawed character decisions or plot machinations that happen before and after that moment, Fargeat was right to input a scene such as that one in order to flesh out the themes of the movie. It is also here where I need to mention that those themes are at the same time not fleshed out to their fullest extent as they should be. 

The thematic framework of the film isn’t exactly handled with a great deal of subtlety. Within its opening 10 minutes, the movie all but states what it is the viewer can come to expect regarding its central takeaways. The direct result of that approach is an inherent predictability to the film. Not so much in regards to every beat of the movie’s plot, but the overall story trajectory is not hard to decipher. That isn’t inherently a bad thing, but it also magnifies an even larger critique. We see how Fargeat develops the idea of weaponizing the unavoidable process of aging against women in the entertainment space, and how it is used to exploit people’s insecurities and/or fuel their vanity. That is surely an ever-timely message that in all likelihood played a substantial role in drawing Moore to the project precisely of her time spent in show business. Now while that statement could be argued as hearsay, I don’t see a version where the movie Fargeat would make could exist in the shape that it does without some input from Moore’s own experiences, or secondhand accounts of other women she’s come to know. As far as how that’s used and translated into the film, Elisabeth’s backstory as a notable figure in Hollywood isn’t delved into that much beyond the general idea that she used to be a star. And so there lies the basis for her decision to become involved with the Substance. What happens from there is all well and good, but one can come to reach the point where the metaphor Fargeat is using as the basis for the film is no longer being serviced in the way that it deserves.

Similar to how Revenge operated through the lens that the story being told was constructed with a feminist message at the center, Fargeat partly discards that instinct in favor of a more shock-and-awe approach. The film maintains its feminist tilt up to a point, but once we arrive at the moment I’d previously mentioned with Moore, that feminist tilt just ceases to continue. Even Reality+ had the focus to offer the viewer some semblance of poignancy by the time the ending came. Only in the very last moments of the film does Fargeat attempt a full circle type moment by again utilizing her recurring modus operandi of pop-layered imagery to portray the illusion of an arc. But it’s just that: an illusion meant to validate every scene that came before in the attempt that the narrative won’t be seen as hollow. And yet, I kind of think it is. There are certainly other payoffs which arrive in the form of satiating visceral thrills, but none that I currently deem effective in serving the core themes of the picture. Though I do find that a bit disappointing, the movie is just too effective at what it does right to be called a bad or even middling. What we’re left with is a movie that from beginning to end, allows very few opportunities for the viewer to catch their breath given how expeditious it feels on a scene-by-scene basis. But I think you’ll still arrive at something worth respecting if you’re willing to weave through the muck and glitz that The Substance wishes to subsume in.

Rating: High Side of Liked It

The Substance is currently playing in theaters

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