Following on from 2017’s audacious and challenging Revenge, French director Coralie Fargeat brings us this satirical, allegorical body horror that wowed the critics at Cannes.
When The Substance is being released in New Zealand?
The Substance is arriving in New Zealand cinemas on September 19.
What is The Substance about?
Fired on her 50th birthday, TV aerobics star Elisabeth Sparkle is at her lowest ebb when she receives on offer to try the mysterious substance of the title, which promises to transform her into a younger, fitter version of herself. And it does! Sot of—manifesting a younger alter ego that she must share her life with, one week on, one week off. But they may not be exactly the same person…surely things won’t descend into a Cronenbergian maelstrom of body horror and social satire if their lives become unbalanced? What are the odds?
The cast of The Substance
Demi Moore is Elisabeth Sparkle; Margaret Qualley is her chemically-created alter ego, for some reason named Sue; Dennis Quaid is sleazy network executive Harvey; and Hugo Diego Garcia, Phillip Schurer, Joseph Balderrama and Robin Greer round out the cast.
The Substance trailer
Why we’re excited about The Substance
Well, the critics are absolutely lavishing it with praise. Over at Rotten Tomatoes the consensus reads, “Audaciously gross, wickedly clever, and possibly Demi Moore’s finest hour, The Substance is a gasp-inducing feat from writer-director Coralie Fargeat.”
However, our own Rory Doherty took a cooler view when he caught it at Cannes, noting “The Substance only succeeds in overstressing the thinnest of observations with numbingly obvious craft. It considers the audience unable to grasp its simplest points, but desperately wants them to grant it modern cult status, and compensates with a volume of splatterific practical FX.”
But that does seem to be a minority opinion, to be fair.
