A Film of Substance
EBM HUMPHREYS
If you don’t like gory horror movies you won’t enjoy this film – unless you’re anything like me. I’m not normally drawn to the genre, but I knew I had to see this film, which I hoped might be the closing statement in a trial against a youth-and-beauty culture which torments so many women – some to death. Those in the public eye, whose looks have been conflated with their talent, are caught in a trap: fake yourself or be discarded.
Demi Moore as Elisabeth Sparkle
From the off, the premise promises cathartic, car-crash satisfaction. Elisabeth Sparkle, a gorgeous but ‘ageing’ superstar, is offered a miracle drug to make her young again … but only for seven days at a time. She must be ‘herself’ for equal amounts of time. A masterwork in body-horror equal to the mighty Cronenberg, The Substance offers both sheer bloody brilliance and a deep-dive into a tormented psyche, taking a tight grip on your senses.
I can’t say I enjoyed watching this woman brought to her knees and lower by an irresistibly cruel miracle. But here is an enthralling, sci-fi-driven excursion into the nature of the self to rival any sober analyst – oh joy! French director Coralie Fargeat is out to achieve something more significant than mere shock. Augmented by hyper-real close-ups, audacious set design and visceral self-punishment, she makes terrifying the mundane, routine sense of inadequacy pushed on to women by the omnipresence of the impossible pin-up prototype.
And when I couldn’t bear to look? That was the scene without any effects at all, just Demi Moore, acting. A bizarre and eye-opening achievement, worthy of all nominations. Dennis Quaid pops in as Lizzie’s perfectly-vile boss too. What men will make of it all, I’m unsure.
Fargeat’s pleasure at ripping into the stale American iconography of sex appeal is evident here. But what strikes me as the film’s best feature is the surprisingly elegant presentation – notwithstanding the bodily mess. Yes it’s hyper-real, dayglo, completely over-the-top and zoomed-in. It’s pure comic book is what it is. Every single shot is a perfect page. I’m now waiting to see this become the first(?) feature film to be reverse-engineered into a comic book. It would be easier to handle the bodyshock-imagery so essential to the story, and it would last forever – standing as a testament to a time when women went a whole lot further for beauty than a whalebone corset.
Showing at Electric Palace, 39a High Street, Thursday 30, 11am & 7.30pm and Friday 31 January, 7.30pm electricpalacecinema.com
We hope you have enjoyed reading this article. The future of our volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. You can also support local journalism by becoming a friend of HIP. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.
Leave a Reply