"The Substance" is Slick, Stylish, and Subtle as a Sledgehammer

 I finally got around to watching Coralie Fargeat's "The Substance" (2024), which apparently was nominated for several Academy Awards - a fact that immediately made me wonder what clips from this film were actually cleared for air during the awards ceremony. This movie is a delightfully spiteful orgy of sex and violence, and if you're a fan of Stuart Gordon's body horror-comedy classics "Re-Animator" and "From Beyond," this movie is definitely for you. If you're the squeamish type, you may want to skip this one, but if you're willing to push through the discomfort, this movie is a primal scream of rage at the insane beauty standards placed on women (in Hollywood especially) that provides real catharsis.

In "The Substance," Demi Moore plays, essentially, herself as the character Elizabeth Sparkle, an aging Hollywood sex symbol who also incorporates aspects of Jane Fonda, as in her latter years she is most famous for her TV aerobic workout routines. As is all too common, Sparkle is fired by her sleazebag producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid) for being too old and "unattractive," and she turns to increasingly extreme cosmetic procedures as she desperately tries to maintain her relevance - which, in patriarchy generally and in Hollywood especially, is synonymous with youth.

While filtered through the genres of sci-fi and horror, the metaphors are not subtle; indeed, Fargeat (who also wrote and produced the film) literally shoves her ideas, themes, and emotions in your face through the copious use of extreme close-ups. When she wants you to understand how disgusting the predator Harvey is (no last name given, but none needed to understand her point), she forces us to watch him sloppily devour prawns with grasping hands and an open mouth. When she wants us to comprehend just how sexy and desirable Sparkle's youthful alter-ego Sue (Margaret Qualley) is, her soft-filter camera lingers on Sue's ass and tits and crotch to an extent that exposes the male gaze as the absurd farce that it is.

And, critically, she contrasts these leering shots of Sue with the kind, naturalistic depiction of Sparkle. We see all of Demi Moore in this movie, and as a bi person I feel qualified to say she can still get it, holy shit. That is, ultimately, the tragedy of the movie. Here is a woman who by any reasonable standard is still incredibly attractive; her only "sin" is being older than thirty. (Moore was about 60 when this movie was filmed - a full decade older than her "too old" character, an irony I'm sure she and Fargeat were fully aware of.) But because of the misogyny that pervades the industry, this objectively beautiful woman feels compelled to destroy herself for the sake of pursuing youth, beauty, and relevance. She does so even when she knows it's destroying her, and the sense of alienation between "low" Elizabeth and "high" Sue also evokes the horrors of drug addition that are unfortunately common in showbiz, for reasons that are connected to the obsession with youth. Drugs make you feel energetic and invincible - just like we did when we were young.

I should say that for all the praise I am heaping on this movie, it still annoyed me, to the point that even halfway through I wasn't sure if I actually liked it. There is a difference between charming bluntness and condescension, and the movie seesawed between the two. When the movie suddenly turns into a synthwave music video to ogle Sue's body, I cackled with laughter at the absurdity; when the movie repeatedly flashed back to scenes and lines of dialogue that had happened mere minutes earlier as if it didn't trust me to remember the plot of the movie I'm actively watching, I groaned with frustration. Maybe those flashbacks were also supposed to be so-stupid-it's-camp; however, thanks to Netflix's "second screen" mandate, it's the SOP of all major productions these days, and frankly it insulted my intelligence. When we encounter the aged version of a previously-introduced RN, we don't need a close-up on his birthmark AND a flashback to the RN's birthmark AND the reveal that the aged version has the same Substance accoutrements as Elizabeth AND the aged version saying explicitly, "Yeah my youthful version recruited you," overlaid with a flashback to that very scene with the RN earlier in the movie. Like Jesus Christ, how stupid do they think we are? WE GET IT.

However, the climax of the movie ultimately won me over with its sheer audacity. I was not viscerally affected by most of the movie up to that point, but the nightmarish horror that Sue faced on New Year's Eve - when even the young, pert, sexy woman is hit with the realization that she still isn't good enough - had me covering my face and squirming in discomfort. And then, when the movie turned into a straight up GWAR music video, I was hooting and hollering with glee. The catharsis that the movie gives when it condemns the movie industry - and society at large - with the blood on its hands is like nothing else. It's horrible, it's beautiful, it's disgusting, it's amazing. Fargeat takes a sledgehammer to the whole system and, Gallagher-style, turns it into a red, pulpy, hilarious mess.

Del Toro's "Frankenstein": A Misshapen, Stitched-Together, Beautiful Thing

I went to see Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of Frankenstein with high hopes; del Toro is one of my favorite directors, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is one of my favorite books. (I will always be a goth at heart.) And in many ways I got what I hoped for: sumptuous visuals and costume design, stellar performances, and a depiction of the Creature far closer to the book than what pop culture usually imagines. There are deviations from the novel and from historical accuracy, of course, but they are done with clear intent. Still, much like Victor Frankenstein, del Toro perhaps got too ambitious when stitching together the disparate parts of his story, and it escaped his control.

The movie retains the framing device of the novel: a ship exploring the Arctic Ocean finds Victor Frankenstein half-frozen on the sea ice, the crew brings him aboard, and Victor tells his tragic story to the ship's captain. However, the movie makes the choice to have the Creature board the ship as well, so he can tell his half of the story directly to the captain - a good and logical change, in my opinion. This is the basic structure of the film: part one is Victor's quest to create the Creature, climaxing with the destruction of his lab and the Creature's escape; part two is the Creature's quest to learn about the world and himself, and to seek some measure of justice from Victor. Unfortunately, the two pieces do not quite cohere. 

Del Toro realizes Frankenstein's laboratory in all its gothic glory.

The first half is the story everyone knows: how many times have we seen an ambitious young doctor sacrifice everything - his career, his family, his sanity - in his mission to conquer death? How many times have we seen him harness lightning to provide the spark of life? That familiarity, however, does not render the story any less enjoyable in the retelling, especially given Oscar Isaac's brooding performance and Byronic good looks as Victor Frankenstein. His character is given additional depth in this adaptation by an extended look at his childhood, the early death of his mother, and the abuse they both experienced at the hands of his father. This lays the groundwork for the ultimate theme of the movie: the generational nature of trauma and abuse, and what it takes to break that cycle and reach forgiveness. (Interestingly, this is also a theme of 2023's Poor Things, which is a more surreal and humorous take on the Frankenstein story.) It's clear that Victor's childhood left him emotionally stunted; he retrains the childish predilection for milk well into adulthood, and when he embraces the resurrected Creature (marvelously played by Jacob Elordi) and presses his ear against the Creature's chest with an expression of utter bliss, it is unclear whether he is seeking a surrogate parent or a lover from this being that is, in essence, his child.

It's this confusion about how to love, how to express love - what love even is - that dooms Victor. He treats the Creature - his child - in the exact same way his father treated him: as a narcissistic extension of himself that he will beat into the shape he desires. Similarly, he covets his brother's fiancee Elizabeth (Mia Goth), but when she does not reciprocate - indeed, when she dares to disagree with his treatment of the Creature and insists on compassion - he lashes out with violent jealousy that ultimately destroys everything and everyone he cares for, though he seems unwilling to acknowledge that that is what he's doing. In this way he's the perfect tragic hero: his actions are reprehensible, but also perfectly comprehensible. 

The second half of the movie - the Creature's story - is one that is less often depicted, at least as an explicit part of a Frankenstein adaptation. It is a coming-of-age story, in a sense, as the Creature gains self-awareness, learns to read, learns kindness, and learns cruelty. It's an exploration of what it means to be human, as the Creature provides an outsider perspective on the nature of humanity. Unfortunately it's also the weaker half of the movie, as del Toro made changes to the story that are understandable given his thematic goals, but raise new challenges that he did not, in my opinion, adequately address.

Is Victor jealous of the Creature, or of Elizabeth?

In the novel and in the movie, the Creature experiences kindness, love, and compassion while staying with
the blind woodsman, but then experiences cruelty from the hunters who shoot him and drive him away. In the movie, the blind woodsman serves as the loving father figure that Victor lacked; the closest that Victor has is his older wealthy patron (and subtextual sugar daddy, again confusing familial and sexual love) Herr Harlander (Christoph Waltz), whose motivations are ultimately self-interested. In contrast, the unconditional love that the woodsman has for the Creature allows the Creature to find self-acceptance and self-actualization; he becomes more human than Victor ever was, he is able to forgive (or at least not hold a grudge against) the hunters for their violence when they mistake him for a threat, and he is ultimately able to forgive Victor for his abuse. This makes perfect sense given the theme of the movie, and also aligns with del Toro's recurring theme of sympathy for the outsiders and "monsters" of society. However, in the novel, the Creature's protracted revenge against Victor - killing his friends and family members one by one, slowly driving him mad - is a major part of the plot, and del Toro replaces it with... nothing.

Just as in the novel, the Creature tracks down Victor and asks him to create a female companion for the Creature. Just as in the novel, Victor ultimately refuses because he is afraid the Creature(s) may procreate. In the novel, the Creature vows to make Victor just as alone as he is. He kills Victor's best friend; he kills Victor's wife on their wedding night; Victor's father (who in the novel is a beloved figure) dies of grief some time afterwards. It is this slow, methodical stripping away of Victor's life that spurs Victor to pursue the Creature onto the Arctic ice, and by that point their fates are so deliciously entwined with mutual hate that you completely understand why Victor has followed the Creature for thousands of miles.

In the movie however, the destruction of Victor's family happens in seconds - Elizabeth is "accidentally" shot by Victor when she moves to protect the Creature from harm, and Victor's brother William (Felix Kammerer) by utter chance receives a fatal head wound when the Creature throws him aside in self-defense. (This is also the source of the most groan-worthy line in the whole movie, when a dying William tells Victor, "YOU are the monster." Does del Toro really think so poorly of his audience that we wouldn't get that message otherwise?) While Victor is genuinely grieved by his brother's death, the Creature is much more affected by Elizabeth's death than he is - it is the Creature who comforts her and stays with her as she breathes her last, by her own request. And so when the movie says, "and then Victor chased the Creature to the ends of the earth," that obsessive quest feels unearned. Del Toro "yada-yada"s half of the plot, yet he had to because he indulged too much in the first half and, at over two hours, the movie absolutely drags.

Similarly, the final scenes in which the Creature forgives a dying Victor feels unearned. The two characters shared very little screen time, all things considered - the majority of their stories, their character development, were separate from each other, so there is no real catharsis when they finally reunite and Victor says, "I'm sorry, I was wrong, please forgive me," and the Creature accedes. While I buy that the Creature would be willing to forgive, given what he learned from the woodsman and Elizabeth, I do not buy that Victor would have the self-awareness to ask when he had been actively trying to kill the Creature right up until that point. It is unfortunate that the ending falls flat because I wanted it to succeed; I like the idea that del Toro was going for, and I think with a bit more work he could have pulled it off.

Elizabeth's headdress is evocative of a seraph

That all being said, despite my criticisms of the structure of the movie I still enjoyed it. The costuming was gorgeous, with bold character-driven choices (Victor dressing like Oscar Wilde to show he is a rebel; Elizabeth wearing gowns with anachronistic backlacing that evokes a dissected cadaver's spinal column). There was a seething sexual tension that suffused the whole movie and that felt deliciously appropriate to the Victorian gothic setting. And like I already said, although I don't think he entirely pulled it off, I see what del Toro's vision was for the story, and I find it admirable. His dedication to the downtrodden, the othered, and the marginalized is a big reason why he's one of my favorite directors, and even when the execution of his message is flawed, his intention is pure and worthy of praise, especially in these times.