The Substance, Starring Demi Moore & Dennis Quaid

A lot of people might want to be like Dorian Gray, but few would care to be the portrait. Yet, a fading celebrity accepts a Faustian bargain that functions quite similarly. She is the “primary,” but her “better self” gets to have all the fun in director-screenwriter Coralie Forgeat’s The Substance, which opens this Friday in New York.

Elizabeth Sparkle is sort of like Jane Fonda, if she never stopped doing aerobics videos. At one point, she was a top actress, but for many years, she paid her bills hosting a daytime exercise show. Unfortunately, the odious network executive Harvey (whose Weinstein-ish name cannot be a coincidence) fired her for being insufficiently young and hot. While recovering from a subsequent minor fender-bender, a dodgy orderly slips her a card for a mysterious service that promises to bring out her best self, through the injection of a “substance.”

The titular substance produces what it promises quite literally, when her more alluring shadow self emerges from Sparkle’s back. She and “Sue” as her offspring calls herself, must scrupulously respect their symbiotic relationship. To maintain balance, each gets seven days out in the world, while the other remains in stasis, before they switch. Without a timely switch, Sparkle cannot safely generate the spinal fluid Sue needs to sustain herself.

Of course, Sue quickly replaces Sparkle on her former show, immediately igniting the ratings. Predictably, she resents the time she must concede to Sparkle, so she starts to cheat. When that causes Sparkle irreversible physical damage, it launches a cold war between the two linked selves.

To a large extent, the first hour of The Substance plays like a better episode of Black Mirror, but the closing half-hour is a relentlessly gory assault on the senses (and some would say good taste). Weirdly, the film revisits some themes of Fargeat’s less extreme short Reality+, in which a chip allowed users to project an idealized image of themselves for twelve hours, but she completely immerses her latest feature in grisly body-horror.

Yet, no matter how appalled viewers get, they should still admire the courage of the three main cast-members, Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and Dennis Quaid, for taking on these roles—and with such ferocity. Eventually, Moore and Qualley almost drown in blood and revolting practical effects, while Quaid fearlessly dives into the TV executive’s smarmy, sweaty, lip-smacking misogyny. Over-the-top does not even begin to describe any of their performances. Yet, Moore also portrays the embarrassing indignities of aging with sensitivity that is otherwise absent from the film.

Fargeat’s slow-build is effective, but the third act descent into bedlam is sharply sudden, overwhelmingly visceral, and utterly irreversible. Even Cronenberg would consider it a lot. However, it is distinctive and the severe, ultra-chic, post-modern art and production design is highly accomplished. Recommended for fans dark speculative fables and body-horror, who are also blessed with strong stomachs, The Substance opens this Friday (9/20) in theaters, including the AMC Lincoln Square.