In Coralie Fargeat’s (Revenge) award-winning body-horror parody, Demi Moore plays a fading Hollywood star in a rivalry with the embodiment of her younger self, Margaret Qualley.
In an attempt to maintain her dwindling celebrity, Hollywood actress-turned-TV exercise impresario Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) pays for an illegal medical procedure that purports to bring about self-actualization, but instead gives birth to Sue (Margaret Qualley), a brazenly audacious copy of her former self that is kept alive by weekly spinal taps. The two are cautioned that failure to respect their new symbiotic relationship could have negative effects. However, Sparkle soon faces an existential threat as Sue begins to withhold more attention from the public at the demand of a slimeball executive (Dennis Quaid) and her own mounting ambition. This leads to a vicious rivalry with her tulpa and a knock-down, drag-out struggle to regain her independence.
When viewed at face value, The Substance seems to be nothing more than a tired parody of Hollywood’s role in maintaining patriarchal beauty standards. However, Coralie Fargeat once again changes a well-known feminine allegory by introducing a daring tone of carnivalesque comedy that ratchets its elements to perversely legendary heights, much as her breakthrough Midnight Madness premiere Revenge (TIFF ’17) uniquely reframed its horror sub-genre. With elements of Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls, Jerry Lewis’ The Nutty Professor, and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray seemingly mixed together, Fargeat further establishes her unique style with her elegant performance and dizzyingly fast pacing.