The Substance stands people on the edge of their seats at Cannes Premiere
By Moira Sullivan
The Substance premiered May 19 at Cannes starring Demi Moore. The film opens with the placement of a star on the sidewalk of Hollywood and Vine for guru fitness coach Elisabeth Sparkle. It’s sparkling new but with the passage of time cracks on the star signify the years gone by. What has happened with the career of Elizabeth Sparkle?. The walls in her office are lined with posters of Sparkle that represent her career and she is still at the top of her game. The Substance is extremely well-made and crafted with bright vibrant colors that change for the various scenes. Most of the shots in the film are set in this long corridors and anterior shots were filmed in Antibes near Cannes.
Enter program director Harvey played by Dennis Quaid who says “we need her young. We need her now”. Sparkle started her career at the age of 25. She enters the unisex bathroom and overhears ageist and sexist remarks by Harvey about getting a new fitness guru. At a meal he slowly devours shrimp accompanied by the disturbing sounds of his mastication. A mysterious voice with the promise of becoming "a better version of yourself" entices her. As Elizabeth drives past palm trees and ads for toothpaste her car spins out of control and crashes. She escapes unharmed and is treated at a hospital. A hospital doctor feels the contours of her spine and tells he she is a good candidate for a new product as a voice in the background says “You are the matrix; everything comes from here”.
A demo is sent to her from a manufacturer. She has to self-inject "the substance" which immediately causes a violent reaction. As she lays down on the cool bathroom floor, her body gyrates in reaction to what is obviously a toxic irritant and soon we see her lying on her side with stitches on her upper spine. Out of that emerges a new "Sparkle" named Sue -- the other version of herself, played by Margaret Qualley. Sparkle and Sue are a symbiotic entity and depend on each other but that isn't really clear to "Sue" who is empowered physically and mentally but not with the wisdom of age. At this point the Elisabeth Sparkle starts to physically deteriorate.
The Substance is an example of body horror and it is genre where Coralie Fargeat is a master. In 2017 she made Revenge, a film about a young woman who travels to the desert near Las Vegas with a new boyfriend. Two of his friends visit and while he is away, they violently assault her. Afterwards all three throw her over a Cliff leaving her for dead. Her stamina and resistance comes into play and with the help of hallucinogens she has pocketed from her boyfriend, she heals from the wound of falling from the cliff and onto a sharp branch from a tree. She presses hot metal from a beer can onto her stomach, which looks like a phoenix arising, and she goes after her assaulters and picks them off one by one. Here we see evidence of Fargeat's visual architecture with all kinds of physical manifestations of injury and assault towards her assaulters. The Substance is very different from Revenge but has revenge elements and all of the elements of physical deterioration and injury; the soundtrack has techno fitness program tracks and to help visualize the transformation of Madeline to a younger version of herself there is a subtle track from Bernard Herman’s score to Vertigo where Jimmy Stewart dresses Kim Novak into the likeness of the other version of Madeline. "Judy" is a young 25 year old actress hired to entrap him and trick him into accidently killing the perpetrator's wife.
I really dislike this part of the film when Stewart has completely transformed Judy into the murdered wife. It is considered one of Hitchcock's best films maybe because the message is so disturbing that nothing could compare with it. During the New Year's celebration there is a comeback pageant for Elizabeth Sparkle who by now is nothing of her former self. Sue plasters on a picture of Sparkles face on to her mutilated body, which falls off and one by one the audience starts screaming. She assaults then with body parts and jet streams of blood. They call her a "monster" in this almost psychedelic part of the film. At the end of The Substance the financial backers for the New Year's celebration who are old men start to dance and jump up and down in Sue's presence as if she is an injection for their younger selves
I saw The Substance at Cannes for the premiere and was in the 2nd row in the last seat and witnessed the audience standing up in their seats in shock. I knew when I saw this film that it was going to win a top award, which it did best for best screenplay. It should have won best mise en scène. .
Movie Magazine International
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