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| Demi Moore in The Substance |
Cast: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid, Edward Hamilton-Clark, Gore Abrams, Oscar Lesage, Christian Erickson, Robin Greer, Tom Morton, Yann Bean (voice). Screenplay: Coralie Fargeat. Cinematography: Benjamin Kracun. Production design: Stanislas Reydellet. Film editing: Jerome Eltabet, Coralie Fargeat, Valentin Féron. Music: Raffertie.
The fluids and textures of body horror have seldom been used for a satirically intense purpose as in Coralie Fargeat's The Substance. But the film wouldn't work without the courageous performance of Demi Moore, who brings her own image as a fading superstar to the movie. She provides a core of actuality to what is often an absurdly tongue-in-cheek film, in which people (including the character she plays) blithely do stupid things and in which plot holes and improbably over-the-top doings are abundant. The scene in which she prepares for a date in front of a mirror, applying and wiping away her makeup and then applying and removing it again, is more effective in its way than any of the scenes in which she is smothered in slimy and oozing prosthetics. As a fable about Hollywood's exploitation of women by men, embodied by Dennis Quaid as the producer named (with obvious aptness) Harvey, The Substance is sometimes blatant and a bit shrill, but the deeper target is our own body-consciousness, and in this area the film leaves us queasily examining our private obsession with age and decay.
