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The Substance is one of those movies that you need time to recover from before you can actually comment about it accurately. The only other movie I could not watch more than once was The Zone of Interest and I had even settled on not to review it since it was so horrific and intense. But after the sheer terror faded into plain horror I could get to reviewing the movie.
Apart from this movie's graphic nature, it is worth a watch for its direction, artistic value, and its not so subtle message - beauty doesn't last.
The Plot of The Substance Movie
The concept is simple - take a magical drug to escape your present reality without any effort and slip into the world you want.
In this movie, it comes in the form of an extreme treatment that produces a younger version of yourself. The person will need to take an experimental drug to experience this change and do a few things to ensure things go on smoothly without a hitch.
The body horror of the whole thing is really terrifying with every single shot being framed as an elaborate metaphor. In fact, it is best to think of this whole movie as two hours of one long metaphor or a series of metaphors sewn together.
You need a strong stomach to get through this movie, but if you can withstand the grossness of the body transformations, you will be richly rewarded with some of the best movie-making there is.
Check out The Ritual Horror Movie (2017) - A Halloween Must Watch According to me, there are at least two layers to the plot, one is the duality within a person and another is the extreme escapism that people resort to, and that is basically the surface-level analysis. There are probably several other ways to look at this movie, but I barely got through the movie once and fast-forwarded over the really graphic parts.
This is an OTT-only movie being hosted on the Mubi app. (Mubi.com give me a free subscription!)
The Visuals
The cinematography in the movie is very claustrophobic and voyeuristic at the same time - like it is a first-person perspective, but it is a twisted or warped reality that the person is experiencing.
The visuals here are stunning with massive shots of sterile environments which in my mind refers to the apathy of society towards individuals.
The large hallway in which Sparkles/Sue walks through to and after a performance symbolizes this. Even the place where the drug is made available to the customers is soulless, even if it is clean and fancy-looking.
Coming to the meat and potatoes of the movie's visuals - the body transformations of Elizabeth Sparkle into Sue and then back to Sparkle again.
The initial transformations are somewhat bearable and some of it is even quite stunning - especially what Sue experiences when she is "born." Sue sees a dizzying array of lights that go whizzing by as if riding through a pitch-black underground tunnel with minimal lighting. The director has tried to envision and display what a newborn baby would feel and experience when being born.
The final transformations where things go terribly wrong, are way too gory, bloody, and everything terrible. But they are part of the movie and what makes it worthy of watching and reviewing.
The Cast
Demi Moore looks amazing and unsurprisingly does a great job of playing the character of Elizabeth Sparkles, a beautiful celebrity on her way out of the industry. As the name Elizabeth Sparkles indicates, there is not a lot of subtlety in this movie, but this does not reduce the viewing experience one bit.
Margaret Qualley while not as storied as Demi; is an amazing actor nevertheless and you feel like she IS a younger version of Moore. Qualley plays the role of Sue, the younger version of Sparkle effortlessly.
Dennis Quad has a short but memorable role in the movie as the sleazy TV producer on the lookout for fresh and young talent.
The rest of the cast while clearly present, isn't vital to the plot of the movie moving forward.
Should You Watch It? Yes
The Substance is a great movie in terms of plot and execution, cinematography, and direction IF you can tolerate the graphic scenes. It is not a feel-good movie, and there is no happy ending, beware before watching.
