JessePnkmn’s review published on Letterboxd:
This will be a long review, unfortunately for those who read, and I won’t even be able to say everything. "The Subastance" made me feel really bad, Coralie Fargeat directs a body horror full of social and political elements as well as gore and in general it works damn well
Elisabeth Sparkle has lost her sparkle, the starting sequence is already incredibly brilliant managing to define her decline in the world of entertainment, a ruthless system that exploits women for their beauty and youth and ends up throwing them away by forgetting them when they begin to fade.
Elisabeth, lived as a queen and discarded as a waste, experiences a deep loneliness and can no longer accept her new condition.
Her desperation is so untenable that she is forced to use a new experimental substance which starts the tragic events of the story, the woman becomes increasingly aware of how the process is killing her but cannot give up as a real addiction.
Everything has a price and Elisabeth will pay for it, "you are one" repeats the voice of "The Substance", even if the viewer has the constant impression that the woman and her "best" version are two different people. Through this powerful image, Coralie Fargeat tells the inner struggle of a woman’s psyche, divided between reason and dependence until the point that she cannot accept herself in any condition
The constant dualism between Elisabeth and Sue is beautifully directed and managed also through the colors present in the scenes that concern them specifically. Sue’s scenes are colorful and bright to represent a "perfect life" (although the presence of black reveals her evil part) but constantly permeated by the feeling of something wrong, like a clock that marks time, always remembering that this is not reality.
The scenes in Elisabeth’s body are characterized by darker tones, as events develop more and more tragically it becomes clear that her life in the “bad version” is only a dramatic and slow waiting that has as its sole purpose to return to the impossible beauty of her “better version”
The male gaze, perfectly described by the female director in the shots of Sue’s body, locks women into a dimension of exclusive appearance and sexualization, the quest for acceptance in a men-dominated context overwhelms and destroys a conscience forced to accept and follow the impulses of a sick system that sells unattainable standards and aesthetic canons.
Fargeat’s eyes are never judgmental in an absolute sense and their attack is diretected towars the male-centric system in general. Elisabeth suffers the inevitable consequences of her choice, the film presents an image of her as a victim of the society that has conditioned her will, not stucking on her all the responsibility.
At the same time the film doesn’t spare women either: Sue, who has the same conscience as Elisabeth, lends herself to adulation towards men of power going in fact to exploiting her body in search of success, her obsession to be beautiful at all costs feeds the same mechanism that wants to crush women.
The film’s theme is specific from a female point of view but it overcomes gender barriers, the drama linked to image and appearance in modern society involves anyone, leading to extreme and self-destructive behaviors with the illusion of feeling "right" and accepted
The surreal final sequence ends in the most tragic and brutal way possible, perfectly connected to the prologue. The creature presents itself to the public, the real monster. Elisabeth’s face crawls on her Walk of Fame star from which it will be "swept away", marking the tragic conclusion of the struggle between society’s oppressive expectations and a woman’s need to be accepted, at every stage of her life, for what she is and not for how the world wants she to be
"The Substance" is a technically excellent film, the high-level direction does not waste any shot and makes great use of quotes. Setting and especially sound contribute greatly to create an oppressive atmosphere that leaves the viewer breathless, using the body as a prison and main element to generate physical disgust (we have a lot of gore) and in particular psychological discomfort.
Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley are simply incredible, their magnificent performances help to trap the viewer in a nightmare making the extremely surreal tones of events "believable" despite some negligible script flaws.
I definitely loved this intelligent, original and hallucinated work that can tell brilliantly about social problems in a magnificently disturbing way