‘The Substance’ review: bombastic body horror with plenty to say

Watching gruesome chiller The Substance brings to mind Madonna‘s speech at the 2016 Billboard Women In Music Awards. Outlining the sexist and regressive “rules” for women in the public eye, she said with a sigh: “Be what men want you to be… and do not age. Because to age is a sin. You will be criticised and vilified and definitely not played on the radio.”

The protagonist of The Substance isn’t a singer, but a faded Hollywood star who has carved out a second career as a TV aerobics queen. Played brilliantly and heartbreakingly by Demi Moore, Elisabeth Sparkle is a bit like 1980s Jane Fonda, but without the depth. Given that Moore’s own body has been scrutinised for decades – particularly in the 2000s, when she had the temerity to marry the younger Ashton Kutcher – her casting is a meta masterstroke from writer-director Coralie Fargeat.

We meet Moore’s fitness guru as she finds out she’s being fired for turning 50. While stuffing shrimp into his mouth in a deliberately uncomfortable close-up, her reptilian network boss Harvey (Dennis Quaid) tells her that at this age, “it stops” for women. Fargeat has plenty to say about the brutality of our patriarchal society – sexist comments made by Harvey and his co-workers are less throwaway than they seem – and some audacious ways of making her point.

Elisabeth is so horrified to have lost her job, the very keystone of her self-worth, that she crashes her car. While being treated in hospital, a gimlet-eyed nurse (Robin Greer) spots that she is an ideal candidate for “the substance”, a shadowy medical programme that promises to create “a better version of yourself” – one that is younger and more “perfect”.

In a fit of desperation, Elisabeth submits to this mysterious procedure, at which point Fargeat ratchets up the grisliness. After injecting herself with “the substance”, Elisabeth’s spine splits open and an adult human body pops out; she is Sue (Margaret Qualley), the new, more nubile version of Elisabeth. According to the rules of the programme, the two bodies have to maintain a symbiotic existence – each gets to live for seven days at a time while the other stays put in a coma-like state.

Though a card in the substance’s welcome pack contains a prescient message – “remember you are one” – Sue soon starts to resent her older self. Filled with fresh-faced confidence, she applies for Elisabeth’s old job and replaces her dated legs, bums and tums workouts with shameless titillation; shot in a lurid parody of the male gaze, Sue’s workout scenes recall Eric Prydz’s infamous ‘Call On Me’ music video.

When Sue begins stealing Elisabeth’s allotted time to capitalise on her newfound fame, the film morphs into a sort of gonzo horror riff on All About Eve where the two rivals are actually the same person. Qualley is chilling as Sue, an ambitious blank canvas with no interior life, and Moore brings tremendous pathos to Elisabeth. Because she seems to have no family, friends or even an agent – one of several touches that place The Substance just outside of reality – Elisabeth can retreat, pitifully, into self-imposed isolation.

Her film is slightly too long, but Fargeat really cranks up the freakiness in the final act. With help from some memorably grotesque prosthetics, she offers a hellish vision of what women will do to themselves in pursuit of men’s idea of perfection. Filled with visual nods to iconic movies including Carrie and Showgirls, The Substance is that rare thing: a future cult classic that also packs a real punch now.

It’s horrifying in the moment and gnawingly haunting when you process it fully: a sickening satire of society’s obsession with youth and beauty.