Coralie Fargeat
The Substance
The Substance
US, UK, FR
2024, 141’, en
Age 18+

Have you ever dreamed of becoming a better version of yourself? Industry veteran and fitness star Elisabeth Sparkle has just been fired from her long-running television show. While a cynical producer searches for a new on-screen siren, Elizabeth receives a mysterious package. Inside is an enigmatic product called The Substance which promises its users a better, more beautiful, stronger, and more successful version of themselves. Feeling wronged by her dismissal, Elisabeth is willing to take risks. Born from her own flesh and blood, a new version of herself, quickly rises to the top of Tinseltown. However, the effects of this DNA-splitting substance require Elizabeth to become a donor and feed her new self every seven days. Both bodies become permanently connected and feed off each other.
A grand, piercing, and bloody slap in the face of an era obsessed with ageism and the cult of artificial beauty, this film marks the bold and striking return of Hollywood legend Demi Moore. Directed by radical French filmmaker Fargeat (Revenge (2016)), this body horror for the “forever young” generation and recipient of the Best Screenplay award at Cannes is a satire full of unnerving twists and hysterical laughter with tragic undertones. It is, on the one hand, a provocative meditation on aging, the male gaze, and the Faustian deals made in the backrooms of Hollywood, evoking the styles of Cronenberg, Hitchcock, Lynch, and surprisingly, Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). On the other, it’s an anatomically accurate illustration – as smooth and perfect as Elizabeth’s new version (played by Margaret Qualley) – of the religious commandments of show business. As fear takes hold, is everyone destined to reach the same end as they journey down the Walk of Fame?