The Substance — My favourite film of 2024 has arrived

Monday is movies, sometimes TV. Today, a review of a brand new film. Not too many spoilers - but if you want to remain totally spoiler-free just go and see this strange, wonderful masterpiece.

On Friday night, I went to an advance/preview screening of The Substance. There have been a few of them around the country, and it screened as part of the film festival in various locales too. It is coming back for a ‘season’ in two weeks - mid September. (It won Best Screenplay at Cannes).

I was excited to see this film, from the small amount of advance-reading and hype I had processed. I didn’t know much about it. Which is the best way to keep it — so this isn’t really any sort of ‘review’ in the traditional sense, and I’m going to try and keep this very spoiler-free. But the best way to stay completely spoiler-free is to take the tip to go and see it when it plays. Enjoy it as a Big Screen Movie. It was made for that place. And bask in it there. Feel free to not read the rest of this but take the absolute recommendation that The Substance is worth your time, your money, and is unlike anything else you might see this year.

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I’d also like to give a shout to Terror-Fi Film Festival. During the year they show a lot of cool advance-screenings and one-offs, and previews. They’re often shown as part of a themed event, dress-ups or a matched cocktail or dessert, retro trailers that link to the main movie’s theme are shown, there’s even been a DJ spinning on-brand music beforehand in the foyer. Very cool.

A shout, too, to The Roxy cinema in Wellington. Where I attend these things. I’m a paying customer, this is no plug for perks or pay or anything. I’m just pointing out the great work they do (including, outside of Terror Fi, they offer a bunch of cool ‘retro’ screenings most weeks).

It’s this sort of effort that helps to make cinema feel special — gets those of us that love the movies along, and keeps us happy. I love getting around to as many of the Wellington cinemas as I can, but I’ll happily declare The Roxy as my favourite. They’re really making the effort too.

So, The Substance.

I don’t want to spoil this film. And I believe the trailer does not. But again, click away, or scroll down if you don’t want to see it:

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But I will trace around some of what the trailer offers — in my words. Demi Moore (career-best) is Elizabeth Sparkle. She’s the ‘Jane Fonda’ of this film, a movie star with the TV fitness show that everyone watches. But as soon as she turns 50 she’s chopped. Dennis Quaid, sweaty and scenery-chewing, is the sadly-perfectly named “Harvey”. He is the cruel and grotesque male-gaze through which we’re forced to view Elizabeth.

A substance is available that will allow Elizabeth to unleash a younger version of herself. That’s the Margaret Qualley character (earlier for her, with less to go on, but I’d also suggest career-best here).

Really, it’s just Quaid, Qualley and Moore — we don’t need any more than that. Those three drive the action of this deep satire. That also just happens to be the finest body-horror film since the heyday of David Cronenberg.

The Cronenberg references (The Fly, Dead Ringers) are fairly obvious. We also get carpet from The Shining, a purloined music cue from Vertigo — and I thought, variously of The Neon Demon, The Toxic Avenger, Requiem For A Dream, The Fly and Barbarian while watching this. And I’m only half-joking about The Toxic Avenger. And though I couldn’t call Neon Demon one of my all-time favourites, I did enjoy what it was trying to do. Very much so. And loved its absurdity. The other titles I mention there are all A-list, top-tier all-timers for me. (Especially Toxie). No jokes.

Barbarian (2022) is the best (smart) horror film I’ve seen in recent years. That was until The Substance, which is its own thing entirely, but scores extra points for me in the way it both links to the films I’ve mentioned and other body-horror tropes are on display too. It is also not afraid to go fully absurd when it needs to, and only ever in a way that make the film better. And then better again.

Writer/director Coralie Fargeat did the same thing to the action-thriller with her rape-revenge film from 2017 — Revenge — as she now does to the horror genre with this year’s The Substance.

The grotesqueries abound, and the impossible beauty standards demanded of women, and the way women are made to second-guess themselves, to justify decisions as being ‘good for business’ when it’s their body, their actual person that is the literal stand-in for the alleged brand is the deep heart of this film. It’s palpable, it should make everyone squirm. Hopefully men in particular.

There’s a slow-burn horror thrill-ride of body-gore that both accompanies and informs the deep, dark satire here.

It’s the sort of A+ filmmaking that’s made all the better for the fact that it will lose some of its audience along the way. A difficult watch they’ll say. And yeah, it’s supposed to be!

It’s early days of course, I’ve only just seen it, but I feel like every frame of it is etched into my brain in a way similar to Requiem For A Dream, Barbarian, Midsommar, and Promsing Young Woman. And not many other films besides those.

So if that feels like the right recommendation for you, then book your tickets, save the date, and get ready to laugh and wince and be blown away.

I think The Substance is easily going to be my pick of 2024’s film-year. I can’t see what could even come close.

I’d say more, but I’m really just thankful I got to see it relatively spoiler-free and I’ve done my best here to give nothing more away than what you’d see in the trailer, and far less than you would get if you read other reviews (I’ve checked, trust me). And yet, I still wanted to try to put across that this film was an absolute wow for me. And I want to share that experience. It is one of those films — like all that I’ve mentioned here. Unforgettable. And isn’t that what you want when you spend your money, when you go along just hoping to see something great, something smart, something funny as well (somehow, occasionally). Some brilliant art that makes your head spin.