By Katie Sterling
If this movie review had to be summed up in one sentence, it would be this: Death Becomes Her walked so The Substance could run. After all, both films highlight the lengths women will go to achieve eternal youth despite the obvious red flags of said opportunities. While Death Becomes Her approached the topic with a more comedic spin, The Substance certainly doesn’t hold back when it comes to the more grotesque nature of a deal gone bad. With five Academy Award nominations, The Substance has garnered quite the buzz, but ultimately is a gaudy approach to a topic that has already been exhausted.
Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is no longer the top-tier actress that she used to be, instead spending her days filming workout videos in an attempt to hold on to that last bit of fame. After overhearing her boss Harvey (Dennis Quid) complain to a coworker that her 62-year-old self is not pulling in the ratings, Sparkle flees the office and in her distracted state, gets into a car accident. It’s only after leaving the doctor’s office that she realizes someone has slipped a thumb-drive into her coat pocket with a note that simply states, “It changed my life.”
On the drive is a short promotional video of sorts that explains the existence of a substance that will allow you to clone yourself into a much younger, more beautiful, more perfect version of yourself. The catch? You have to switch back every seven days – seven days as the younger version, seven days as yourself. Naturally curious and frustrated by her sagging stardom, Sparkle calls the number, speaks to the mysterious provider and signs up.
What follows is the true body horror aspect of the film and the process of the substance working its cloning magic will make even the non-squeamish uncomfortable. Let’s just say it involves DIY suturing, IV insertions, self-injections and muscle dysmorphia to say the least. Whether it’s supposed to be an underlying message on how the industry treats aging or simply just set up to shock audiences, the whole thing is a lot. Most would say too much.
For the majority of the first half of the film, the entire plot is Sparkle and the clone Sue (Margaret Qualley) in a repetitive montage of switching bodies. Sue has replaced Sparkle as the fitness guru and each scene basically switches back from Sparkle laying naked on the floor and close ups of Sue’s cellulite-free body gyrating in an 80’s leotard. With a far too long running time of two hours and 20 minutes, this sequence goes on and on and on. We get it! She’s young and hot, she’s old and not, move on with the plot already!
Like any “too-good-to-be-true” deal, Sue gets a little too greedy and doesn’t end up switching back at the exact end of seven days. When Sparkle remerges, she notices that one of her fingers has essentially turned necrotic. Cue another longer than necessary montage! Sue continues to be greedy and various body parts of Sparkle start decaying. Because the two have no memories of each other’s time, they start sabotaging each other and resentment blossoms and they start hating each other…even though they are supposed to be the same person? This movie makes no sense and dare I say, is the most exhausting movie of the year. When you finally get to the climax of the film, it’s so ludicrous, it’s laughable.
Even for a pseudo-science fiction/horror movie, this film is grossly excessive. It also makes everyone in the film unlikeable, even the woman who you are supposed to sympathize with? Instead of taking an opportunity to really delve into how women of a certain age are cast aside (which Moore herself talked about in her Golden Globes acceptance speech), this film focuses on cheap shock value. It’s also supposed to take place in the present/future, but set against a flamboyant 80’s setting? This film makes no sense and if it weren’t for a free trial opportunity to screen the movie, I would be mad if I had spent money on it. It’s a film that’s garnering a lot of talk for its shock value, but at the end of the day has very little, yeah I’ll say it…substance.
The Substance is streaming on Amazon.
