Body horror "The Substance" Demi Moore is obsessed with a younger, better self
"The Substance" gives Hollywood icon Demi Moore a spectacular screen comeback. The provocative body horror comedy deals with important topics such as self-acceptance, beauty mania and misogyny.
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- In "The Substance", a former Hollywood actress comes across a secret new drug that gives her a younger, better self.
- This unique body-horror comedy is a hot topic, provocative, powerful and stylishly staged, but also becomes borderline disgusting as it progresses and should be avoided by the faint-hearted.
- After decades without any formative film appearances, Demi Moore celebrates an astonishingly good screen comeback with a leading role that is tailor-made for her.
With films such as "Revelations", "Striptease" and "The Jane Files", Demi Moore established herself as one of the most sought-after Hollywood stars in the 1990s, achieving her current status as an acting icon.
In the past two decades, things have become much quieter around the once so successful superstar and it seemed as if her career was slowly coming to an end. She even revealed in a recent interview that she was considering quitting acting.
Fortunately, however, everything turned out differently. French director Coralie Fargeat, who already caused a sensation with her brutal revenge action thriller "Revenge", is now giving Demi Moore a brilliant comeback on the big screen.
A mirror for Demi Moore's reality
In Fargeat's new work "The Substance", Moore takes on the leading role and impresses with a courageous, physically demanding and captivating performance. The role seems to be tailor-made for her because she can identify well with the character. Demi Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, a formerly successful Hollywood actress who now earns her living as a fitness instructor in television shows. But even in this job, it seems to be only a matter of time before she is replaced by a younger, "crisper" version.
She only finds this out by chance when she overhears the boss of the TV station on the phone while he is urinating in the toilet next door.
It is no coincidence that this boss is called "Harvey" and is portrayed by Dennis Quaid in a wonderfully exaggerated manner as a prime example of a misogynistic bastard. Completely unexpectedly, Elisabeth comes across a secret drug that could solve all her problems. "The Substance" gives her a younger, prettier and better self!
But it's not quite that simple, because there are a few rules that apply.
Society's obsession with beauty
The substance may only be taken in certain quantities and with certain frequency. So Elisabeth becomes the stunning young beauty Sue for a week at a time and then has to slip back into her old body for a week. This works well for a while, but Elisabeth soon develops an obsession with her new fabulous self. When she begins to disregard the rules, she is confronted with horrific surprises.
Coralie Fargeat hits the nerve of the times with the story of her masterfully staged body horror satire and cleverly addresses various currently pressing issues. She criticizes Hollywood and the television industry, which give women of a certain age no or significantly fewer roles in films, and points to the social problem of beauty mania, which is forced on people to the point of complete obsession.
It also sheds light on the issue of self-acceptance in a highly exciting way. The main character in "The Substance" gets into a relentless battle with herself because she can no longer accept her true self.
Deformed human bodies
The film is a provocative statement - refreshingly honest and relentlessly direct. With a lot of black humor, everything in "The Substance" is portrayed in a completely exaggerated way, but the statements that are made are of enormous importance and very pointed.
This is expressed not only in the narrative itself, but also in the clever and detailed visual language. In the very first shot of the film, a bird's eye view of a fried egg is shown as it slowly splits in two. The following shot shows a Hollywood star on the floor, soiled and smeared with food scraps. The images are the first indications of what is to follow.
What begins cheerfully, brightly colored and sexy with the fitness dance videos develops into disgusting images of deformed and disfigured human bodies. The pathological obsession with beauty leads to boundless ugliness. There really are no limits to the body horror, leaving the audience in doubt as to whether they should scream or laugh. "The Substance" truly offers a unique cinematic experience that will never be forgotten.
