Coralie Fargeat’s sophomore film The Substance is a tour de force of glam, glitz, and gross-out horror. The Substance is jam-packed with beautiful sets, incredible colors, and phenomenal acting. After winning best screenplay at Cannes and featuring Demi Moore in what people are calling a career-best, one has to wonder if this film will be able to compete in any Oscar categories.

The Substance is a truly remarkable piece of cinema. It will surely appear on numerous best-of-year-end lists for its acting, direction, and writing. I hope this film wins some more prestigious awards in the future, but its bizarre nature and gross-out visuals may turn off some Academy voters.

The Substance That Gives

Demi Moore stars in The Substance as Elizabeth Sparkle. An older starlet with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a popular long-running fitness TV program. Elizabeth seems to have it all until one day the inevitable finally comes for her. Age. Dennis Quaid playing a super slimy TV exec informs Elizabeth in a not-so-subtle way that she is too old to continue working for the station. He sends her flowers, gives her a cookbook, and immediately sets out to find someone younger.

Elizabeth is then offered salvation in the form of a miracle new drug mysteriously named “The Substance.” The Substance creates a new you. One that will exist for seven days outside of the tired old you before you must switch back to your old self. This ritual can be done every seven days, never longer, with no exceptions. As with any film that lays out clear, concise, easy-to-follow rules, the rules are quickly broken and horror ensues.

Following The Rules

“Don’t feed after midnight.” “Never say I’ll be right back.” “Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.” Whenever a movie gives a character a clear set of rules, it’s pretty easy for the audience to figure out where the movie’s going to end up. The Substance continues this trend but it does so in a gloriously gory fashion. This may be the grosses movie I’ve ever seen in my life, and I mean that as the highest compliment.

As Elizabeth’s younger self, Sue, played by Margaret Qually, ends up becoming more and more famous, eventually taking over Elizabeth’s old show, she starts to extend her trips longer than seven days. Initially, the consequences aren’t too dire. At first, it is just a finger that looks a little disfigured, but soon it turns into full-on body horror. The lengths of which would make the Cronenberg family smile with glee. Underneath all the fame of Hollywood, the glitz of youth, and the body horror of age, lies a compelling subtext that elevates this movie far past standard body horror fare.

The Substance That Takes

The Substance is a movie with numerous themes and ideas and it handles each of them expertly. The obvious themes are those of fame, youth, and beauty. The longer Sue stays out past her seven days, the more beauty she takes away from Elizabeth. It’s an interesting idea and one that manifests itself beautifully on screen. The camera loves to linger on Margeret Qually as she twerks and struts around in her younger body only to juxtapose itself firmly in front of a still gorgeous but aged Demi Moore. It’s a striking visual that pairs so well against the bright pastel 80s-inspired color palette of the film. The theme I found myself most drawn to though is that of drug use.

For a film with so many grand ideas, it would be easy for the movie to buckle under its own weight but it never does. The substance plays like The Fly meets Mulholland Dr. meets Requiem for a Dream but it never gets so lost in one theme that it forgets the other. Every time we see Elizabeth cleaning up the mess of her substance-created self, we get a deep reminder of the drug use theme the film is aiming to portray. And every time the camera or a man leers just a little too long at Sue while quickly cutting away from Elizabeth, we get the themes of ageism and beauty that are on full display. They are brilliantly realized right up until the stomach-churning gross-out conclusion.

Take Care of Yourself

Ultimately The Substance is about taking care of yourself. Not just yourself now, but the self you will become. We see the actions of Sue, a younger carefree version of Elizabeth, come with immediate consequences to Elizabeth’s body. There is also the way the camera, and the men around her, view Sue’s body. Every time Qualley is on screen the camera shoots her in a glowing brilliant light and focuses on the all skin she’s baring throughout the movie. Conversely, Demi Moore shows just as much skin but is shot in a much less flattering light. I hate when people use the word brave to describe a performance, but what Demi Moore does in this film is nothing short of a middle finger to ageism and Hollywood creeps.

All of these grandiose themes wrapped up in a beautiful package and set to a truly incredible score result in one of the finest films of 2024. Every frame of this movie is brimming with personality, style, and message. The acting is superb, the colors pop on the screen, and the music scores everything perfectly. The Substance may be too bold to win any Oscars, but halfway through September, it’s the best film of the year.