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A fading celebrity uses a black market drug to become her younger self.
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Why watch the movie The Substance?
Chief Editor at Filmelier
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Demi Moore gives a career-best performance as Elisabeth Sparkle, a former A-lister past her prime and suddenly fired from her fitness TV show by repellent studio head Harvey (Dennis Quaid). She is then drawn to the opportunity presented by a mysterious new drug: The Substance. All it takes is one injection and she is reborn - temporarily - as the gorgeous, twenty-something Sue (Margaret Qualley). The only rule? Time needs to be split: exactly one week in one body, then one week in the other. No exceptions. A perfect balance. What could go wrong? Deliriously entertaining and ruthlessly satirical, Coralie Fargeat's Cannes sensation turns toxic beauty culture inside out with a be-careful-what-you-wish-for fable for the ages. Explosive, provocative and twisted, The Substance marks the arrival of a thrillingly visionary filmmaker.
"The Substance is a horror film directed by French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat (Revenge), winner of the Best Screenplay award at the Cannes Film Festival 2024. It borrows the premise from The Picture of Dorian Gray, the classic novel by Oscar Wilde, but uses it to comment on issues such as ageism, beauty standards, and body dysmorphia, specifically in the context of Hollywood. The plot follows Elisabeth (Demi Moore), a successful actress who, in the latter years of her career, has become the host of a fitness television show. That is until a studio executive (Dennis Quaid, in a grotesque caricature of Harvey Weinstein) decides she is too old for it and ends her contract. Desperate, Elisabeth turns to the mysterious drug of the title to "activate" a younger and improved version of herself, "Sue" (Margaret Qualley). Both women must maintain a delicate balance for seven days, which begins to unravel when Sue achieves success and starts to resent Elisabeth as a burden. With waves of blood, mutilations, pus, and other bodily fluids that words can't begin to describe, The Substance is a delirious and clever satire of the arbitrary yet predatory and exploitative frivolity with which the media imposes and perpetuates unattainable beauty standards. At the same time, it is an astute representation of the self-destructive extremes many women are willing to subject their bodies and self-esteem to in order to fit into the system and play the game. Regardless of the conclusions, one thing is for sure: you will experience a whirlwind of emotions and have an incredible time... if the nausea doesn't defeat you halfway through."