Demi Moore has given the best performance of her career in The Substance, which made its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Written and directed by Coralie Fargeat, also starring Margaret Qualley, the filmmaker leans into the grotesque and the horror genre to tell a story about unattainable beauty standards that are pressed upon women in our misogynistic world.
“Society I think is still very much centred towards the male gaze,” Fargeat said following the film’s screening at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto. “To express the violence that it does to us, I wanted to do it in a very not subtle way, because I think the world is not subtle regarding this.”
What is ‘The Substance’ about?
Moore plays a famous, Oscar-winning actor Elisabeth Sparkle, who has transitioned to a successful career in TV fitness. But her boss, executive Harvey (Dennis Quaid), wants to replace Elisabeth with a younger, and in his eyes, more attractive, woman.
After an unexpected car accident, Elisabeth learns about a black market procedure. With the use of “the substance” a younger version of herself will be created, but there are rules. These aren’t two separate people, they are one person, and each one can exist in the public world for only seven days in row before they need to switch.
In her quest to stay relevant and desirable, Elisabeth takes the procedure creating Sue, played by Qualley, who ends up auditioning for Elisabeth’s replacement.
But as Sue starts to rise to fame, Elisabeth didn’t anticipate the terrifying impact it would have on her physical self.
‘The harsh way that we criticize ourselves’
As Fargeat was crafting this story, she was inspired by her own reality of aging, using this story as a way to express the “violence” that she felt inside to the outside world.
“I was … past my 40s and I was starting to feel myself, the pressure of the feeling that I was going to be erased, that I was going to disappear,” Fargeat said in Toronto. “I really wanted to kind of say a big scream, a big shout out, that we should make things different and we should try to free ourselves.”
What’s also interesting about The Substance is that while Elisabeth is aware of the pattern of women being devalued my men as time goes on, Sue chooses to take the same path.
“In life, how often do we do the same thing? We seek the same approval, the same validation,” Moore said. “That familiarity that we all fall into patterns until we break them.”
“In this case it’s broken physically apart, with a little bit of blood.”
Moore undergoes an impressive physical transformation in the film with the physical embodiment of Elisabeth’s internal turmoil, spending six to nine hour in makeup. The materials used were so delicate they were disintegrating as she was filming.
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“It’s a much easier read on paper,” Moore said.
But that’s just one example of how Fargeat is completely uncompromising in her decision to make this a true horror film, with all the blood and gore, while still providing such effective commentary on how women are so undervalued in society, particularly as they age.
“When I grew up as a little girl those kind of movies were for the guys,” Fargeat said. “To me, when I was watching those movies, I felt like I was entering in a world that I was not supposed to be.”
Making the substance a horror film allowed the filmmaker to free herself from the gendered categories she, and really all of us, have grown up with. The result is one of the most impactful films you’ll see at TIFF.
“My first thought, besides it being an incredible script, was that this would either be something extraordinary or it would be an absolute disaster,” Moore said.
“It was also just such a unique way and so out of the box delving into this subject matter. Mainly because it was really exploring the internalized way of violence that we have against ourselves and bringing it out into a physical manifestation to really be able to look at what we do, with the harsh way that we criticize ourselves.”
Additional public TIFF screenings of The Substance are on Sept. 6 and Sept. 13, with the film coming to theatres through Mubi on Sept. 20