The Substance: A Life Scarring Serum

This film hooks critics but leaves some audiences with withdrawals. Due to that, substantive spinach popper Popeye asks Hundred Tomatoes this question: Should I inject “The Substance” into my veins?

Imagine for a second that you could inject a liquid into your body, that generates another version of yourself, giving you the ability to live as someone younger, more attractive, and more perfect in every respect. Would you take that opportunity? This underlying question drives Coralie Fargeat’s newest work, “The Substance”, which landed five nominations at this year’s Golden Globes, along with the “Best Screenplay” honors at the Cannes Film Festival. The only kicker that comes with the above question stems from the fact that you would just have to share time -- one week for one, one week for the other. A perfect balance of seven days each... Easy right? If you respect the balance... What could possibly go wrong?

Does “The Substance” put people in a state of unforgettable euphoria? Or give them a nasty overdose? Before answering that question, let’s examine what those possible paint sniffers over at Rotten Tomatoes think about it:

Critic Score: 90% Certified Fresh

Critic Synopsis: Audaciously gross, wickedly clever, and possibly Demi Moore's finest hour, The Substance is a gasp-inducing feat from writer-director Coralie Fargeat.

Audience Score: 75% Fresh

Audience Synopsis: A lot of compliments on the concept of the movie, along with the acting. However, complaints about excessive gore emerged enough to lower the overall score.

Clearly, with a fifteen-point gap between critics and audiences, certain elements of this film divide people. Although Popeye may love his spinach, those forearms certainly look roided up with some substances. I bet he wants to know what Hundred Tomatoes thinks of Coralie Fargeat’s newest work.

Spoiler Alert: I plan on unveiling some plot points that occur in this movie as I review it. Just as a heads up, should you choose to watch this movie, IT WILL SCAR YOU FOR LIFE. If you would rather not figure out how exactly it would do that, feel free to scroll down to the “TL;DR” section of the review, the official Hundred Tomatoes score, along with the “Oscar Watch” section where I speculate in a spoiler-free way what kind traction “The Substance” could get at the 97^th Academy Awards.

Without further ado, let’s go to the review:

“Why did (insert actor/actress) get so much plastic surgery done?”

This thought comes up constantly, especially in Hollywood circles. The more you examine the behaviors of many people as they grow older, particularly celebrities, it becomes abundantly clear that we live in a culture addicted to preserving youthful looks, to the point where people agree to mutilate their bodies under the perception that doing so will help them remain relevant. From plastic surgery, to fillers, to botox injections, to facelifts, to Brazilian butt lifts, to boob jobs, to liposuction, to so many more operations under the sun that I probably do not even know exist, this entire industry predicated on preserving subjective beauty standards takes in roughly 57.67 BILLION dollars a year. It blows my mind.

With all of this going on, the real question we should ask, is, “why do people go to such extreme lengths to preserve an idealized version of themselves?” Director Coralie Fargeat explores this psychological phenomenon, basing her entire film, “The Substance” on the above food for thought. Given that this issue predominantly affects women, it makes sense for her to examine this concept for a wide audience. However, do her observations resonate with everyone?

Objectively speaking, so much brilliance occurs in “The Substance”. From an acting perspective, both Demi Moore, who plays the “aging” female aerobics television instructor (I put that in quotes because she looks great), and Margaret Qualley, who acts as her substance stunt double, knock their roles out of the park. Each not only play characters that drastically contrast one another, but do so in ways that make it seem like you’re watching two versions of the same person live their life.

Words cannot describe the immaculate performance Moore puts on. She gets erratic, ecstatic, enigmatic, and every other emotion under the sun. All the actions she takes illustrate her inner dialogue beautifully as she eventually starts to resent all the attention the younger version of herself receives. I cannot recall the last time someone showcased this much acting versatility in a long time. She heavily leans into the role, unleashing her character’s inhibitions without hesitation. I could not help but feel sorry for her by the very end. The character arc on this individual takes you on quite the journey.

Margaret Qualley deserves credit as well, because she portrays the role of Hollywood’s new “it” girl convincingly. Her ability to act as confident, happy go lucky, flirtatious, and blissfully unaware of the consequences of her actions towards her older self comes across as incredibly believable. It feels like I am watching this all unfold in real life.

Although he does it in a campy way, Dennis Quaid depicts an obnoxious, chauvinistic executive named Harvey driven solely by ratings dynamically (hmmm I wonder who they named him after). The way he treats Demi Moore’s character who he no longer deems relevant, compared to Margaret Qualley’s character, to whom he rolls out the red carpet for, requires deceptive range. He acts so transparently in his own self-interest that it makes me laugh, but also think.

Theme wise, the concept of “The Substance” serves as an eye-opening showcase on not only the backwards societal beauty standards, but also the dangers of taking extreme measures to chase highs experienced in the past. The process to create this “newer, more perfect self” requires an activation injection, a stabilizer, several other seemingly complicated steps, along with a rule that both versions must swap places seven days at a time. Failing to do so leads to alterations that create serious consequences for themselves. The main one involves mutations that make them look progressively more grotesque. These intricacies symbolize not only how much people will go through regularly just to maintain their look, but also how they misapply cosmetic treatments that completely ruin their original beauty, thus creating a downward spiral that keeps making them look worse as they continue to try to correct their mistakes.

Fargeat juxtaposes the treatment of both Demi Moore and Marget Qualley’s characters in an intriguing fashion that helps you understand why the main character undergoes such an insane process to change their life. The newer self gets showered with attention, praise, accolades, special treatment, as well as endless sponsorships. Other than the occasional compliment from someone in their aging generation, the older version gets dismissed by nearly everyone. Almost nobody looks at them the way they used to. They get seen as an afterthought at best by most people. Even the ones that admire them only do so through the lens of nostalgia, not for their current crop of accomplishments. This dynamic reminds me of the way child actors can get treated after they reach their peak in popularity. When they cannot re-live that peak, it can drive them insane. The same concept directly applies in “The Substance”. They execute this theme masterfully. It goes a long way in assisting with the understanding of why women in Hollywood go to such extreme lengths to maintain a younger look. The positive attention that comes with large scale success can be its own drug in certain ways.

So many nuanced dynamics occur throughout the course of the film. While men take the brunt of the heat from Fargeat for their obsession with objectification, the movie also does not let women off the hook for the way they enable broken societal beauty standards. Both the older and younger women end up resenting one another for various reasons, creating a power dynamic that perpetuates the way society continues to operate when it comes to beauty calibers. The older self despises the younger self due to the lack of respect she gets despite laying all the groundwork to make the new generation’s success possible, while the younger self sees the older self as someone simply envious of their accolades, thus dismissing their critiques out of hand. The layers in these conflicts create a ton of different avenues to analyze on this subject matter. This is a testament to the strong writing throughout the course of “The Substance”.

The other element that fascinates me pertains to the way they portray society worshipping everything yet valuing nothing. The moment someone gets deemed as “washed up”, they get thrown to the curb without a second thought. All that attention, admiration, and appreciation gets thrown out the window in an instant. They get forgotten quickly. Society today contains the collective attention span of a fruit fly, which Fargeat captures poignantly.

This might be the first film of the year where I see no gaping flaws in it objectively speaking. The concept of it is creative, the theme exploration goes deep, the acting, especially from Demi Moore knocks my socks off. The editing incorporates so much off the walls footage that makes it artistic, yet super engaging. The aesthetics create a unique vibe. Even the writing does a great job with the “show don’t tell” mantra, creating believable dialogue along the way. The makeup/hairstyling team create disgusting prosthetics that are incredibly elaborate and detail oriented. By the end of the film, I cannot recognize either Demi Moore, or Margaret Qualley at all thanks to the cosmetics team. I can go on all day about the quality of “The Substance” from an objective standpoint.

With all this in mind, I say “objectively” a lot for a reason… Because subjectively, this movie possesses so much shock value that it does a number on me psychologically. Do they really need to ruin my life and cram eleven cookies into the VCR Buddy the Elf style just to shed light on the dangers of Hollywood’s unrealistic beauty standards? I wish the Men in Black would come to my house to use that memory wipe device so I could forget some of the images of “The Substance”. So much blood, so much gore…. So many grotesque monstrosities. The final creature they morph into at the end due to misuse of “The Substance” makes Jabba the Hut look like America’s Next Top Model…

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. With that in mind, let’s look at a photo of me reacting to the last twenty-five minutes of the movie:

In that moment, especially near the end, I could not help but think, “my life is nothing I thought it would be and everything I was worried it would become because for for twenty-five minutes I thought there was monsters on the world”

Look, I understand the symbolism behind all the final moments of the film. It highlights two powerful messages: that the abhorrent attitudes towards beauty in our society serves as an absolute monstrosity that maliciously mutates the way people perceive themselves, and that Hollywood has A LOT of blood on its hands for perpetuating this broken standard that ruins so many beautiful women. They scathingly indict the entertainment industry for its toxicity by the end.

With that in mind, I am glad I took a few days to write this review after watching it, because for a long time, I could only think about all the nastiness, not the symbolism. In fact, I know of plasma donation centers with less blood in it than this movie. When the credits rolled, I asked myself, “what in the name of Tom Cruise did I just watch?”

Ultimately, whether someone enjoys watching “The Substance” boils down to one’s tolerance for witnessing disgusting images. For those who can stomach it, the film provides a brilliant showcase of many relevant dynamics affecting societal beauty standards. For those who get squeamish at the mere sight of blood, do not touch this movie with a thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole. Regarding this dilemma, Hundred Tomatoes stands in between these two extremes: understanding the beautiful symbolism yet horrified by the grotesque images on screen. The good, the bad and the ugly of this movie will live in my head rent free for a while.

TL;DR Synopsis: “The Substance” brilliantly explores the dangers of attempting to overcompensate for societal beauty standards with excellent acting while simultaneously scarring me for life in the process.

HT Score: 77/100 Tomatoes

Oscar Watch:

If you asked me a few days ago whether “The Substance” would get nominated for “Best Picture” this year, I would have said “no” because it scathingly critiques the entertainment industry (one which many in Hollywood like to romanticize) through some serious shock value. In the same way people in the fifties were not ready for Marty McFly’s high octane guitar solo in “Back to the Future”, I did not feel like the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences (AMPAS), a voting block with a median age of sixty two, would be ready to nominate such an eccentric film. However, with five nominations at this year’s Golden Globes as of Monday, December 9^th, the odds are now in “The Substance” favor to receive a nomination. Why? Because the last film to not get nominated for “Best Picture” after getting five nominations at the Golden Globes was “The Ides of March”, which came out back in 2011. Maybe I underestimated the open mindedness of AMPAS? As of now, I give this a fifty five percent chance of getting nominated for the grand prize. However, should it get nominated, I guarantee that it will not win it all. Here are some other categories I could see some nominations:

Best Director: Due to her ambitious vision executed so beautifully, Coralie Fargeat could sneak into a nomination here. Her passion shines through in this project, which could put her over the edge, into a nomination.

Best Actress: As I mentioned before, Demi Moore puts on a phenomenal performance. But it’s also A LOT. Voters may feel a bit too overwhelmed by all that she showcases that they will opt for more lighthearted performances as nominees. I hope they nominate her though.

Best Supporting Actress: Margaret Qualley turns in a very believable performance. I could see her sneaking in a nomination depending on how the rest of the awards season pans out.

Best Original Screenplay: The dialogue in this feels incredibly real. It is layered well, with various unique themes explored in nuanced, yet powerful ways. Everything about the writing in this exuberates intelligence. I would be surprised if “The Substance” does not get nominated here.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Should “The Substance” win any awards, it will be in this category. The process to which they make the main character progressively more disgusting requires a creativity and an attention to detail not seen in any other movies I have watched this year. The abomination they eventually create contains body parts coming out of places you never thought possible. It looks scarily realistic to a certain extent as well.