IN Substance (2024), the fear of aging is everything. But it is also the driving force behind every decision the characters make in the film. Especially when the beauty, youth, and strength that come with the privilege of physical attractiveness become a terrifying scenario that allows for any excess. However, director Coralie Farjat explores the theme of everything anyone could do to be irresistible without becoming preachy. In the script, which the director also writes, no one worries. consequences of this excessive greed. Instead, it’s all about how to satisfy it.
So the story picks a modern incarnation of vanity and celebrity. Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is an Oscar-winning actress who is currently going through a difficult time in her life. All because it is the time of her greatest health and sex appeal past. Moore plays the role with a certain cynicism that suggests that the conflict Elizabeth is experiencing is not entirely unknown. And in fact, one of the film’s greatest strengths is how bravely the actress shows her character’s desperation and limits of sanity. Much more because Substance devotes time and interest to exploring a misogynistic and brutally sexist world.
But at its core, the film’s theme is not—not really—a critique of today’s aesthetic obsession. Before that, Substance Even more brutal is to show how the world can reject someone. To turn collective worship into a weapon of manipulation. This might seem like a very difficult moment for a horror film about the body. However, the director uses only what is necessary to create an uncomfortable context.
The Dilemma of Impossible Beauty
From a conversation in which one character chews with his mouth open—and remembers that he can do so because he is powerful—to Elizabeth hurting herself simply because she is a mature woman, the film sets the stage so that when the center of its plot occurs, everything is clear and nothing feels staged. modern melancholy about one’s own attractiveness.
The book is full of David Cronenberg and his way of turning the body into a nightmare map. Substance. But this story, which could easily become a moralistic and even feminist manifesto, is a story about degradation. Moral, physical and mental. So its director experiments with camera games and grotesque aesthetics that ultimately turn out to be disgusting, to show the extent to which the need for recognition can become a monster. In times of instant fame, Substance wisely explore moments that turn into a game with disgusting scenarios.
Bloody Riddle
So when Elizabeth calls the mysterious phone, the tape begins to piece together what she has skillfully told in the first ten minutes. The character is invited to experience an improved version of herself, which will also show her that all her talent – scorned because she was considered too old – can become her greatest weapon. In other words, the mysterious private procedure she is invited to participate in will bring out the best in her. And all this taking into account your current experience.
The script keeps its secrets well, so when it reveals that the previous idea is brutally accurate, the film moves to original and brutal places. Elizabeth’s “new self” is a creature born from her body and the properties of the substance emerging from her back. The director manages to use the context she provided earlier to make the explicit horror scenes brutal, but not gratuitous. Most of Substanceis able to make the most extravagant visual decisions meaningful and understandable in their context. Nothing seems out of place or a concession to being more repulsive. An achievement the director achieves in some of the film’s most unpleasant moments.
Realistic Monsters from “The Substance”
The creature that creates Elizabeth’s body (played by Margaret Qualley) can be as successful, sexually appetizing, and powerful as the woman it came from in her youth. That’s when Substance achieves its best results. Coralie Farjat creates a combination of symmetrical planes that create the feeling that beauty encompasses the entire world. At the same time, he uses extreme close-ups to show how beauty reaches its peak and then It falls towards the monstrous.
The film is so over the top and uncomfortable that at times it will be difficult to distinguish the pleasure that Elizabeth’s new divided existence promises from the extreme cruelty. On this occasion, the director shows wounds, guts and deaths very graphically, but without losing a certain sense of aesthetics. The film uses a version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the light and shadow inherent in each person. But much more, from the need to please one’s darkest and greediest places. The combination is often terrifying, and sometimes mocking. A balance that the director maintains without losing his dark sense of humour.
Of course, it is not easy to put all the pieces together and give it a finale that lives up to expectations. Coralie Farjat achieves this halfway through, and although the film loses much of the manic energy that kept it going in the third part, it continues to surprise and scare. With a final scene that will go down in horror history. Substance At least he delivers on his biggest promises. This is a horror story adapted for a generation obsessed with appearance.
Source: Hiper Textual
