Identify
masthead
Retail Basket  |  Cookies & Privacy  |   Sign In  |  Register  |  © Cine7 2002-2025      
Cine7
navigation
 
Film Data
The Substance  2024
Director:  Coralie Fargeat
Producer:
  Tim Bevan, Eric Zellner and Coralie Fargeat
Art Director:
  Julie Plumelle
Editor:
  Jerome Eltabet
Music:
  Raffertie
Screenplay:
  Coralie Fargeat
Director of Photography:
  Benjamin Kracun
image 1
Cast:
spacer1 Margaret Qualley
people1 Dennis Quaid
people1 Demi Moore
spacer1 Hugo Diego Garcia
spacer1 Joseph Balderrama
spacer1 Oscar Lesage
spacer1 Gore Abrams
spacer1 Olivier Raynal
spacer1 Vincent Colombe
spacer1 Tiffany Hofstetter
spacer1 Matthew Géczy
spacer1 Tom Morton
spacer1 Margaret Qualley people1 Dennis Quaid people1 Demi Moore
spacer1 Hugo Diego Garcia spacer1 Joseph Balderrama spacer1 Oscar Lesage
spacer1 Gore Abrams spacer1 Olivier Raynal spacer1 Vincent Colombe
spacer1 Tiffany Hofstetter spacer1 Matthew Géczy spacer1 Tom Morton
spacer1 Margaret Qualley people1 Dennis Quaid
people1 Demi Moore spacer1 Hugo Diego Garcia
spacer1 Joseph Balderrama spacer1 Oscar Lesage
spacer1 Gore Abrams spacer1 Olivier Raynal
spacer1 Vincent Colombe spacer1 Tiffany Hofstetter
spacer1 Matthew Géczy spacer1 Tom Morton

Synopsis:
Desperate to secure her fading celebrity status, Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), a Hollywood actress-cum-TV exercise impresario, undergoes a black-market medical procedure that promises self-actualization, but culminates in the spawning of Sue (Margaret Qualley), a bold and brash clone of her younger self that perpetuates its existence via weekly spinal taps. The pair are warned to respect their new symbiotic relationship or risk corrosive consequences. But as Sue starts reserving more time in the limelight at the behest of a slimeball executive (Dennis Quaid) and her own growing ambition, Sparkle is soon faced with an existential threat, one that engenders a wicked feud with her tulpa and a knock-down, drag-out battle to reclaim her autonomy.
Review:
Taken at its premise, The Substance appears to be merely a well-trodden exercise in satirising Hollywood’s contribution to patriarchal beauty standards. But just as her breakout debut Revenge (2017) uniquely reframed its horror sub-genre, Coralie Fargeat once more transforms a familiar feminine allegory by injecting an audacious tone of carnivalesque camp that ratchets its ingredients to perversely mythic heights. Seemingly intermingling bits of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Jerry Lewis’ The Nutty Professor, and Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls, Fargeat’s stylish execution and deliriously breakneck momentum further cements an identity all her own. The result is an unforgettably twisted parable that features exceptionally embodied performances from Moore and Qualley, and outrageous body-horror on the order of FX legends like Screaming Mad George.

disc test