"People always want something new. It is inevitable. And at fifty, everything is over." With these words in The Substance, a film by Coralie Fargeat presented at the Cannes Film Festival and released on October 30, TV producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid) catches the eye of Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), a former movie star. , who, a little older, ends up on the small screen doing gymnastics lessons in the style of Jane Fonda.
Rejected by her boss who only evaluates women based on the equation of youth=beauty, the woman decides to join a program that is offered to her anonymously, named as the title of the movie (Substance) and takes home a device with syringes, bottles, and test tubes along with a phosphorescent substance and a set of rules: if you inject it into a vein, it will produce a younger version of itself, but after living seven days in the body of her younger self, as the old woman's body rests, will have to return to the original for another seven days, causing a temporary alternation that cannot be broken, under penalty of terrible side effects.
So after the injection, Sue (Margaret Qualley) emerges from Elisabeth's body, a beautiful and very young version of herself, who quickly takes back the TV job she, now elderly, had just lost, leaving Harvey speechless with her sensuality. The problem, however, for Sue is that missing an entire week and settling back into Elisabeth's older body in the long run becomes a real problem that gets in the way of her success. And so, she decides to extend her vigilance, causing unimaginable consequences.
"What I loved about the Coralie script is that the whole movie embraces the male perspective of an idealized woman that we ourselves have come to believe in and conform to," explains Demi Moore, who at 62 and after huge successes with films such as Ghost, Indecent Proposal and Private Jane dating back thirty years, it has been somewhat sidelined by Hollywood.
"What's really interesting about the film," says director Coralie Fargeat, "is that when Elisabeth produces this younger, sexier, and apparently better version of herself, she finally gets the chance she's been denied, but repeats the same pattern once again, seeking approval from the man, and in the end finds herself fighting only with herself, because at the end of the day, the real change here is how we behave, not how we go after them pleasure and bow down to those who look at us."
Fargeat adds: "The Substance is a film about how women's bodies are always subject to scrutiny, fantasy and criticism within public debate and how we women are made to think we have no choice but to be perfect, sexy, laughter, money, young and beautiful to have values in society. In light of all this, when I turned 40, I thought my life would be over, that no one would like me anymore and no one would love me or find me interesting. And so I decided to make this film to address that theme. The story can make you think of "The Picture of Dorian Gray", but also of other universal stories that reflect on the human condition, on the fear of aging, although here it is mainly about women".
Far from being a dull pamphlet on the subject, the film has the style and bright colors of the glamorous ad and spares no shots of gruesome detail, starting with Elisabeth's body being torn in half to reveal her older version. new.
"I thought of it from the beginning as horror," explains Fargeat, "and I knew I would have wanted to use as few digital effects and as many tricks as possible, because this was a film about the body, so there was a need to perceive the materiality of the flesh: the work to create a makeup that was beautiful to look at and create strong emotions in the public was a long time. For some scenes Demi had to undergo make-up sessions lasting up to seven hours, while for others where she had to appear very thin we used a leotard, although the longest work was on Margaret for the finale big movie."
At the same time, since we are talking about bodies, the beautiful ones of Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley (Andie MacDowell's daughter), the film does not lack many nude scenes: "I used nudity in a different way", explains the director. "When Elisabeth is in the bath, she faces herself, looks at herself and judges herself and appears without tricks, immersed in reality, as she is. When we see Sue, her body is seen from the outside and is therefore adapted in a different way because it is judged by the public gaze: therefore I asked Margaret to prepare herself as best as possible with hard weeks of training in the gym, to represent this hypersexualized, seemingly perfect stereotype."
Then of course there's the violence and the blood that flows in rivers, and you probably wouldn't expect it from a female director if it weren't for the fact that Fargeat had made her debut with Revenge, a gore thriller in which a girl who is a rape victim, takes revenge and commits a massacre.
"The violence in my film is extreme because I see it as a reflection of what is usually reserved for women in society, but for me it also becomes a way of self-expression. In fact, as I was growing up, it seemed to me that as a woman I should only be delicate and sensitive and that certain genre films like horror were reserved only for men, who had much more freedom, whereas I believe there should be no difference." .
Originally published on bota.al
