20/05/2024 - CANNES 2024: Coralie Fargeat delivers a brutal, post-modernist and feminist version of the Faustian pact, bellowing upon the spirit of Cronenberg, Lynch, Kubrick and various others

Demi Moore in The Substance

Let’s get a personal opinion out of the way from the outset. Whilst Coralie Fargeat’s incredibly hard-hitting The Substance [+see also:
trailer
film profile] is a particularly well-constructed piece of entertainment, and whilst trashiness and gore can clearly have a cathartic and relaxing effect upon the tribe of critics whose patience is often tested by arduous works which don’t always deliver on their promises, we shouldn’t confuse our eggs (to borrow the opening shot of the French filmmaker’s movie). Whatever its qualities - which there’s certainly no lack of in The Substance – the movie’s presence in competition at the 77th Cannes Film Festival is a stupefying sign of the times, a colonisation of minds by a primal (but not simplistic) film language which is pumped full of the amphetamines of Hollywood fabrication and whose formidable unconscious effectiveness, beneath its simplistic magical exterior, is clear to all. That this fantastic Midnight Screening movie could become a candidate for the Palme d’Or makes us wonder about the evolution that’s currently underway, notwithstanding the good explanations which are likely to come our way (the quest for predominantly young audiences, the multiple attractions of genre films). And the "moral" itself of Coralie Fargeat’s sucker-punch and mega-referenced movie should make us think about the dangerous long-term effects of giving into the most seductive temptations when we’re travelling against the wind.

That said, The Substance is a highly accomplished concept film, with its hyperbolic and Dantesque style and its story unfolding between a film studio comprising the set of an aerobic TV programme, and a stripped-back, sublime apartment overlooking the whole of Los Angeles. "She needs to be young and sexy. How has this old hag lasted so long?". For the star of the show, Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), a one-time Oscar winner who’s celebrating her 50th birthday, it’s grievous news: she’s being shelved. But a car accident opens up new and miraculous opportunities for her, thanks to a secret product, The Substance, which guarantees youth, beauty and perfection through cell duplication.

With the process activated, daily stabilisation in place, and a mandatory permutation on the 7th day, the injections come thick and fast, and we’re soon faced with two versions of Elizabeth: an inanimate body in the bathroom (which needs to be fed intravenously) and a living one. The old matrix and the young Sue (Margaret Qualley) - her Promethean double with a body that looks like it’s been sculpted in bronze and who (successfully) auditions to be the star of the new show - thus begin to alternate their existence on a seven-day basis. But the situation quickly degenerates due to Sue’s growing desire to circumvent the basic rule: "don’t forget that you two are One"…

An ultra-physical, sci-fi re-reading of the classic act of stepping through the looking glass and of our dangerous thirst for immortality, this post-modern, female, Dorian Gray avatar excels in its excesses: flesh bursts, blood trickles and everything is over the top: the corridors, the sexism displayed by producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid), the yearning, desire and hatred for the other self… All of which is shot with delightfully ferocious intensity (via high-angle and low-angle shots), perfectly in keeping with Revenge [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Coralie Fargeat
film profile] (the director’s first feature film) and in a deluge of sound and music. Exploring the well-known duality of the soul, the film also promotes (knowingly or unknowingly?) drug use (depicting dealers, withdrawal, escaping reality for an artificial paradise, overdoses). This certainly isn’t a new thing on the big screen, but it’s never been shown in such head-on, visceral fashion in the guise of entertainment. Recycling old recipes (the enchanted mirror in Snow White, The Fly by Cronenberg, Elephant Man by Lynch, Carrie by De Palma, Shining by Kubrick, etc.) and ramping them up tenfold (whilst openly laying claim to them) within sensationalist packaging, The Substance proves to be a dangerously appealing film.

The Substance is produced by Working Title (UK) and A Good Story (France) together with Universal Studios, in co-production with French firm Blacksmith. The movie is sold worldwide by The Match Factory.

(Translated from French)

Photogallery 20/05/2024: Cannes 2024 - The Substance

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Coralie Fargeat, Demi Moore, Dennis Quaid
© 2024 Fabrizio de Gennaro for Cineuropa - fadege.it, @fadege.it