The Substance (2024; Dir:Coralie Fargeat)

This movie is quite the unrelenting experience. I would urge anyone curious to check it out to do while it's in theaters.

Some people are complaining its satire is extremely obvious (I think the title has a double meaning that ironically acknowledges this), but I think it's more that Fargeat is trying to convey a sense of overall visceral disgust, which she does. Sort of like how you don't necessarily listen to something like My Bloody Valentine for the lyrics.

Just noticed it's playing at a rep theatre here tonight...As much as I like Margaret Qualley (usually--not in that lousy Coen brother film), it looks pretty gross reading up a bit; I'm more and more skittish about such stuff and probably better to skip it.

I loved it, plot holes and all. It's gleefully deranged at times and very enjoyable.

If some movies can be called "Oscar bait" or "critic bait," this one seems like it was made to appear on John Waters' annual top 10 list.

I'm more and more skittish about such stuff and probably better to skip it.

I visit the imdb parents' guide more often that I'd like to admit because I have an EXTREMELY low tolerance for body horror (I'm only just now seeing Cronenberg films everyone else watched 40 years ago). This one seems like one I will NEVER see.

This was great

I’m squeamish enough that I probably won’t see this, but hope it does well.

A colleague:

The Substance is such exquisite proof, a la 30 Rock, that the only people who hate women more than men are women themselves. Perhaps impressive that someone made a film that has less to say about femininity, the male gaze, and fleeting stardom than Katy Perry’s “Woman’s World.”

— the morally corrupt juan barquin (@woahitsjuanito) September 22, 2024

this is gonna be one of those horror movies that reaches people who usually don't do horror right

i liked her first film Revenge. i just wrote about it here on my expert film review thread. but its gory and violent and probably not everyone's thing. i will watch this when it streams in....5 and one half weeks. that's my guess.

this movie fucking rules and the negative reviews all don’t get it. also the body horror is so extreme i don’t see it translating to a general audience

it IS a movie about self-hatred. i think it has a great deal to say about it

it’s also a movie about having an eating disorder

idk why but i feel like many ppl are pretending we don’t live in a culture that teaches women to hate themselves. this movie exists in the most heightened-reality version of that culture possible in order to sledgehammer its point home. it is not subtle. it is also a deliriously fun ride

The closest cousin to this movie afaic was “Female Trouble”, in terms of its plot points at least. I enjoyed it most when I was thinking “this isn’t satire, this is Waters-style filth”. I couldn’t like it or dislike it, it felt too square and inert in premise to love, and too dazzling in execution to hate. It’s funny that there is a spoiler that I didn’t know going in, and didn’t realize until the very end: it’s French.

The performances and special effects and soundtrack were all ridiculously good. I remarked to my bf that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d finished a movie and felt zero curiosity, zero sense of wonder, and nothing at all to ponder or contemplate. It felt like getting a piano dropped on your head.

My wife saw this as an allegory for mother/daughter relationships.

ivy otm

this movie fucking rules and the negative reviews all don’t get it. also the body horror is so extreme i don’t see it translating to a general audience

― ivy., Sunday, September 22, 2024 9:37 PM

What's interesting is the friend/colleague whose tweet chain I posted is trans and in the middle of transitioning.

I can't speak from a woman's perspective ofc, but I've seen similar takes online, even people calling the film mysogynistic, with several follow-up comments saying that this is roundly missing the point. I have to say I can't really see where this take comes from, but maybe I'm missing the point.

Coming out of the screening for this and listening to people speak, they could have just come off a rollercoaster ride. It took my friend and I a full hour afterwards to stop saying "Sorry, I'm still a bit frazzled from watching that movie.

I went into this only having seen a teaser trailer before Alien Romulus a few weeks before. So I was ready for a Black Mirror-style take on the old elixir of life story, possibly with some body horror twists.

And, yeah. It's not the most original story on the surface: Sure echoes of Death Becomes Her, and also that one epsiode from Guillermo Del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities where a miracle formula promises to grant eternal youth, it's a tried-and-tested trope now. But for me any feelings of "Hm, I've seen this film before" were constantly upturned, and there are hard handbrake turns going on throughout. Each time I thoguht I knew where it was going, something else would happen. It ramps up in such a way that I thought was extremely well done, i.e. very very slowly and gradually but persistently.

I reckon this will have crossover appeal thanks to the big starring names (Moore and Qualley are both fantastic, and Quaid gives a suitably OTT supporting performance), but also score big with fans of "proper horror" who enjoyed stuff like The Fly, Society, Braindead etc.

Bring a sick bag

What's interesting is the friend/colleague whose tweet chain I posted is trans and in the middle of transitioning.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, September 23, 2024 5:29 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah everyone i’ve seen accuse this movie of misogyny is trans. i don’t really get it and i feel like i must be stupid

i guess fundamentally i don’t think this movie hates its main character(s). the scene that convinced me of that was demi moore getting ready for a date, a scene i have lived thousands of times

i did see someone try to argue that this movie was more misogynistic than death becomes her, which,, yeah death becomes her is “fun” and “campy” but is undeniably made by someone who hates women

Elizabeth Shue in a coma for much of Back to Future 2, Robin Wright catching AIDS and dying in Forrest Gump -- pretty much.

The ass-to-ass cut made me lol

I don’t know how this movie could be considered misogynistic, there were no women in the movie, or men. It was all symbols and allegory

saw this yesterday and i'm still not really sure how i felt about it. it was hard not to think about Poor Things - Qualley is in both obviously but also the idea of placing an old consciousness in a new body, the use of fisheye lens, the setting that's out of time, the heavily stylized sets, but mostly the very heavy-handed satire/social commentary. i was worried that my opinion of The Substance would follow the same path as my opinion of Poor Things, a movie i enjoyed while in the theater but quickly thought less of once i was not watching it. so i was glad that The Substance picked up in the second half and got more gonzo, because it got a lot more fun at that point.

i laughed a lot at the movie. Demi Moore was truly excellent throughout, i was really impressed at her ability to handle the extreme aspects of the movie while also the rare subtler moments (OK the date preparation scene is not really subtle from a screenwriting perspective but her performance was relatively subtle in that moment). Qualley and Quaid were good too but in less challenging roles.

the directing and screenwriting were frustrating, they were just so bludgeoning in hammering home the themes of the movie, repeating the same images and spelling out connections that were already obvious, although there were some great images and ideas too. asking for The Substance to be subtler seems like a mistake but i wish it trusted the viewer more. also i know "it could have been shorter" is such a basic complaint but this could have easily been shorter.

i don't know, i think i liked it?

my biggest question is how are elizabeth and sue "one person" (as gets repeated over and over) if they have separate consciousnesses and goals and physical appearances? what does elizabeth ever get out of using the substance? she doesn't really get to live vicariously through sue since she doesn't have any of those experiences or feelings?

someone upthread mentioned an interpretation of the movie as being about mothers and daughters, which would make more sense given the setup of how the matrix/other self relationship works, but it's not really pointed to in the movie itself unfortunately

i feel like my only path to fully enjoying this is accepting it as a dumb fun extreme body horror movie. which is fine!

my biggest question is how are elizabeth and sue "one person" (as gets repeated over and over) if they have separate consciousnesses and goals and physical appearances? what does elizabeth ever get out of using the substance? she doesn't really get to live vicariously through sue since she doesn't have any of those experiences or feelings?

― na (NA), Monday, September 23, 2024 11:49 AM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

they don't have separate consciousnesses!

have you ever had to begrudgingly take responsibility for the actions of your manic and/or depressed self? that's the dynamic here

in this respect maybe the movie is too subtle bc a lot of people are struggling with this

remember they are one!!!! lol

i guess fundamentally i don’t think this movie hates its main character(s). the scene that convinced me of that was demi moore getting ready for a date, a scene i have lived thousands of times

― ivy., Monday, 23 September 2024 14:20 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

This was a great scene. Arguably the central and most devastating moment of the film despite all the hi-falutin stuff going on around it

my biggest question is how are elizabeth and sue "one person" (as gets repeated over and over) if they have separate consciousnesses and goals and physical appearances? what does elizabeth ever get out of using the substance? she doesn't really get to live vicariously through sue since she doesn't have any of those experiences or feelings?

― na (NA), Monday, 23 September 2024 16:49 (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Isn't that kind of the whole point of the film though? Technically they are one person, one mind, as the mysterious dealer keeps reminding her. But increasingly it's a Jekyll and Hyde thing. Elisabeth is hooked on being Sue, even though it becomes increasingly obvious that she is a Tyler Durden of sorts.

As ivy says, it's that hangover, that reckoning one gets from past actions. Drink and drug dependency works a similar way. In fact the whole thing could just as well be viewed as an allegory for addiction as it is a commentary on ageing, the fickleness of the entertainment industry, and the validation-seeking mindset

i have never met an internally consistent person, lemme know if anyone does

As with the Civil War thread, I'm wary of reading perhaps a bit too much into films like this, or taking the ideas too literally.
Sure it's an allegory with some not-so-subtle things to say about society and the world we live in. But it's also a ridiculously OTT body horror sci-fi and should be appreciated as that too.

While there was nothing subtle about the execution of the film, I didn't feel like the themes were telegraphed in an especially heavy-handed way. And if it had been changed into an overly didactic allegory full of DO YOU SEE? moments, it would have gotten in the way of a pretty fun schlocky picture.

i keep typing up responses and deleting them, ultimately i feel like i already said how i feel about the movie so i'll leave it there. it's been a long time since i've seen a movie and still not known the next day exactly how i felt about it, which ultimately is probably a good thing.

Sorry, didn't mean to come across as condescending as my last post might have read.

I have to say, when Elisabeth turns into Sue and it's revealed it isn't a younger version of herself but a totally different person, that threw me a bit because, well, maybe I was expecting a Death Becomes Her-style makeover with CGI. But I think the whole conceit of two very different people sharing a mind works in the end.

At first, my brain was pondering the conceit of it— “what would I do in Elisabeth’s situation?”— probably start leaving some notes for Sue and requesting the same, for example— but the film seemed determined to shut down any connection between its reality and irl reality. “The New Years Show” and all the wilfully placeholder elements to the setting called to mind Lars “I’ve never set foot in America” Von Trier’s usage of a black stage in Dogville in his own USA critique cinema. By the end, the film was so strenuous in its demands that I sever and relationship between its allegory and my personal experience/interpretation (the hilarious shareholders tableau, tits onstage) that I entered into a trance of gory delight at it all— my brain turned off and just lol’d at the boobs and butts and blood.

What was that sync on the bloodbath scene? Some kind of speed metal thing? It was so good. I read the credits and saw Anna Von Hausswolff had a track in there, yay Anna!

oh was that anna?!!!! i was losing my goddamn mind at that point

i agree, everything about it is hyperreal, from the Netflixy patina of the apartment to the American Apparel-ness of the studio. Nothing feels quite right in this world

it is sooo funny that the talk show is called “the show” and the network is called “the network”

Ahhh it was “Ugly And Vengeful” from Dead Magic. Brilliant sync, brilliant score too

i died in this movie

the french cooking segment was almost too much for me to handle

my gay demi moore loving soul was fluttering on the precipice of extinction

it is sooo funny that the talk show is called “the show” and the network is called “the network”

― ivy., Tuesday, September 24, 2024 7:59 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol 🙂

Wisdom

A genuine problem with Megalopolis is that the primary antagonist is a corrupt and weird mayor of New York who, despite Coppola's best efforts, is not nearly as corrupt or weird as our real mayor Eric Adams.

— Zach Schonfeld (@zzzzaaaacccchhh) September 24, 2024

xp Not to mention a giant billboard just saying "NEW SHOW COMING SOON"

and it's RIGHT OUTSIDE her apartment window. It took me a while to realise it was a billboard and not a poster she'd put up. Also LOL at having a giant picture of yourself in your underwear on display in your apartment

I'm thinking about the hyperreality of this film, and how there are echoes of another Cronenberg film, eXistenZ, in here. Because that's kind of what's happening here isn't it? When Elisabeth becomes Sue, she's essentially using her as a virtual reality avatar and getting hooked on the delusion.

Another thing going on here is that despite Quaid's obvious vileness, misogyny, corruption and disdain for Elisabeth as a person, Sue still gets up in the morning and goes to work, even gives it 110% even though she (as Elisabeth) KNOWS that Sue is being exploited and will one day get dropped in exactly the same way.

One would think that if you'd had your past successes and were suddenly granted the chance to re-live your 20s, you would spend your youth more wisely than doing workout videos on TV (or just working your job in the same way as you had before). But this isn't the case with Sue - she willingly goes back to the Network, smiles for Quaid and his droogs, and does all this while Elisabeth watches on with a mixture of jealousy and horror.

Can’t stop thinking about how French The Substance was. Coralie, you can’t have topless dancers on network television in America lol

— ali golub 🌼 (@alibrooke4ever) September 23, 2024

i can never tell if people who say stuff like this are being serious or not

i just don't know if i'll ever recover from this film

it may have just hit at that right time that it's now going to be permanently ingrained in my dna as an operating agent in the universe

Would you say that you and the film… are one?

Maintain the balance

lol the balance will def be the death of me

it’s big thumbs down from flopson on this one

satire was at the lowest level possible. broad, cartoony, almost entirely unfunny. it reminded me of the depiction of mattell corp in the greta gerwig barbie movie, when will ferrel’s walking around surrounded by the board of executives. the fact that the satire is also so dated—which tbf is internally consistent, as its set in a dreamlike alt-1980s—but it’s datedness just reinforces that the satire is just a thin veneer for its hagsploitation

baffling that a script this underwritten won best screenplay at cannes. the food bags are labeled “food matrix” and “food other person”, the billboard for qualley’s tv show says “new show” (and the show itself is called “pump it up”), the new years special is called “the new years show”. also the constant callbacks to earlier scenes that bonk you over the head with overexplanations of things that were too obvious to begin with (“she’d look better with tits where her nose was” as a monster with tits for a nose is on screen). also sooo fucking long and it dragged like hell throughout the middle and end

baffling that a script this underwritten won best screenplay at cannes. the food bags are labeled “food matrix” and “food other person”, the billboard for qualley’s tv show says “new show” (and the show itself is called “pump it up”), the new years special is called “the new years show”

again all of this is so funny

other things that are so funny: dennis quaid saying “furs!”; dennis quaid

the audience at my screening was in uproarious laughter throughout the entire film

i don't think that's underwriting i think that's intentional humor

it reminded me of the depiction of mattell corp in the greta gerwig barbie movie, when will ferrel’s walking around surrounded by the board of executives

That in itself felt like a shout out to Terry Gilliam's Brazil

baffling that a script this underwritten won best screenplay at cannes. the food bags are labeled “food matrix” and “food other person”, the billboard for qualley’s tv show says “new show” (and the show itself is called “pump it up”), the new years special is called “the new years show”

I agree this is kind of the joke - the whole thing is meant to be cartoonish, broad etc. So much product these days is marketed exactly like the Substance. Huel, for example.

I liked the way you had this really quite complicated (and painful-looking) kit - enormous hypodermic needles, tubes that look more like USB cables, packets of globby custard - all packaged together in this neat do-it-yourself Hello Fresh box with instructions in this big, simplistic (but domineering) typeface.

"Food Other Person" seemed quite deliberately ambiguous - which one is the "other person"?

Yeah there were one or two unnecessary callbacks that weren't necessary, but it was hardly the SAW movies. That "tits where her nose was" line didn't really work at all.

Yeah I liked the home meal kit design and vague IKEA instructions for the most dangerous procedure imaginable.

movie's about ibs bc every time i'm about to fuck some motorcycle-riding goon it's like my real self starts emerging from the bathroom

idk why but i feel like many ppl are pretending we don’t live in a culture that teaches women to hate themselves. this movie exists in the most heightened-reality version of that culture possible in order to sledgehammer its point home. it is not subtle. it is also a deliriously fun ride

Pretty much my take! May seem random but I most thought of Carax's Annette at points -- Ron and Russell know their LA, certainly, but Carax's choices on how to film and stage the US-set hyperrealities there (I mean, the Super Bowl is called the Hyper Bowl) had a weird echo here for me. So leave it to the French, I guess. Meatcleaver satire not rapier but it works because it's just that, sent to an extreme. (I did wonder if Elisabeth arranged to have her house cleaner take time off or something; there's something to the point that the only two known clients are white folks. And I did love how her apartment is seemingly amazing but right outside it seems more 'normal' in the hallway much like the jerk neighbor is, and how they can just put up a billboard outside to ruin the view -- a view which separately kept making me think of the bombs-about-to-drop opening of Fallout.)

Thought both Demi and Margaret were great down the line. Quaid playing a straight asshole version of Fred Schneider was kinda perfect too (seriously, the combination of hair and outfits had me thinking that throughout the film). I did love the pure 1930s 'urgh a monster!' reactions from the audience, carefully spaced.

I thought this was great. Kind of like "Dorian Gray" if the portrait resented its owner? It also brought to mind a bunch of other stuff, like "The Fly" and "Society" and (more recently) "Infinity Pool," one of lots of doppelganger films, fore of mind as a contemporary trend since reading Naomi Klein's incisive "Doppelganger" a while back.

I thought the Hollywood "satire" was the weakest aspect, though the more I think about it the more I believe that nothing in this movie's world is entirely real as depicted, and instead it's all being distorted by Elizabeth's extreme dysmorphia. There's a telling if fleeting bit toward the end when she returns to the studio in her final form and, from her POV, we witness all the fans and well-wishers only to be quickly shown that they don't exist. They are what she *wants*, as is the specific body-affirming job she doggedly pursues, which might explain why, given a do-over, she returns to the same disgusting people and industry. It's the unrealistic bar of affirmation and adulation set by her disorder. For sure that partly explains this bizarro world where a fitness instructor is the peak of celebrity that would be tapped to host a boobs-out (in several senses) New Year's Eve show.

That said, I did wonder if the film might have worked better, or been a tad more subtle (not that it needed subtlety) had it not been set in some ott version of Hollywood, which of course has always valued image and looks and youth and whatnot, and instead been set someplace more mundane, like an office or law firm or someplace ... normal, where many people still regularly face the same demons of self-loathing or the pressure of appearances, just not in a place literally focused mostly on looks. It's interesting (maybe) that the only other person we know taking the substance is 1) male and 2) working in a much less glamorous profession. In fact, it made me wonder to what extent the substance (in so far as we're meant to think too deeply/logically about it at all) actually exists and is not just a manifestation of the aforementioned disorder. Those voices she hears, in her apartment, at the back-alley PO box, they're of course not "real," but she hears them all the same. Or when Sue pulls out the chicken leg; it's not "real," it can't be by any standard of physiology, it's a manifestation of her disgust and self-loathing after binging.

Anyway, lots to think about. I liked her last movie a lot, too, makes me want to watch it again while this one sloshes around.

My favorite detail: I noticed all the cars in the movie were vintage. Nothing new, afaict, just classic cars shining *like* new.

This movie rocks

Complaining about the shallowness of the satire is kind of moot point since the whole thing played like those '80s wild-swing satires like They Live, Society, Repo Man and Eating Raoul. It's like complaining that the Toxic Avenger didn't say enough about pollution

I didn't think of this as a Hollywood satire, I just think the Hollywood satire component of it was the weakest and most obvious and least original aspect. (And I did mention "Society.")

Its so funny that I went into this only knowing, like, a picture of Demi Moore with smeared makeup and that it was a Fantastic Fest thing. I assumed it was going to be another of the 87-minute horror movies I always watch with my Alamo Drafthouse Season Pass and then it was this 140 minute disorienting pukefest

As I was watching it I kept thinking, man, in the '80s or '90s this would have been some I-dare-you-to-watch-it slimefest like "Society" or "Toxic Avenger" that you snagged at the video store some night, but here's the same sort of thing starring A-listers on lots of screens.

My wife and her girlfriends, all squeamish normies, went to see it Tuesday night, and they all loved it.

the whole thing played like those '80s wild-swing satires

I mean...it's not EXACT as a comparison but the movie title I kept thinking of as an 80s equivalent was The Stuff!

And Street Trash!

Yeah, speaking of gross-out neo-satires.

I thought of "The Stuff" too, but a lot of the aforementioned sorta-satires felt broader to me, not in the micro sense, but in the broader macro sense. Like, "consumerism" or "capitalism" of "fascism," issues writ large. This one felt smaller, more personal in scope. Though I'm not sure what its frenetic, inevitable/absurd finale is meant to convey, exactly. Catharsis? Tragedy? Sadness?

Official podcast stuff but even so:

https://mubi.buzzsprout.com/1788738/episodes/15774318-the-substance-coralie-fargeat-rips-beauty-standards-to-gory-shreds

Yeah that was really good. Listening to it, I couldn't stop thinking about how people calling it mysoginistic or hagsploitative were widly missing the point, or at least looking at it from the wrong end of the telescope

I'll have to give it a listen!

Another hint that this movie maybe isn't depicting a heightened reality but only reality as Elizabeth sees it is her apartment. As Ned noted:

I did love how her apartment is seemingly amazing but right outside it seems more 'normal' in the hallway much like the jerk neighbor is, and how they can just put up a billboard outside to ruin the view

I think "seemingly" is doing some important work here! Elizabeth (as she has been presented) has had a decades-long career that made her a household name. And yet this apartment ... is it amazing? We see this huge view of the hills out these giant bay windows, but she has a modest TV, and it's only a one bedroom, one bath place, at least as far as we know. And in a multi-unit building at that, with an annoying sitcom schlub neighbor right across the hall, close enough to complain about the noise she is making. That's not exactly celebrity style, where wealth and fame are rewarded with resort-like luxury and isolation. And then that billboard ... it's all but right outside her living room, *facing* her living room, where really only she can see it. What good would it do there, if it were real?

Those other movies that have been mentioned, from "They Live" to "Toxic Avenger" to "Society" or whatever, they are all internally consistent. What is happening is "real" in their respective worlds, and is happening to everyone. I stand by my theory that the world we see in this is only as Elizabeth sees it, or wants it to be, or sees herself in it.

I mean, I think once Monstro Elisasue shows up, it's pretty clear that we're living in someone's mental undoing, so it's interesting to wonder if it goes back even further.

Further to the point, she's a morning workout TV personality, not a Hollywood star, despite her name being ostensibly on the walk of fame. At first I assumed that she'd started put as a famous actor and was now doing the TV exercise show to pay the bills, but I'm not so sure now. It feels more like she was put on the earth to be on The Show

https://ew.com/thmb/Ul7x7eYRZb4otfB6dv-SOyg4rQs=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/_Demi-Moore-with-her-dog-Pilaf-091624-89495657d5934f788db001bbc40a64a1.jpg

Is that dog growing out of her shoulder?

https://assets.vogue.com/photos/66bc317662b81e3bfe3941a0/master/w_1600,c_limit/DOGUE_DEMIMOORE_PILAF_0813_002NEW.jpg

"I can take Pilaf everywhere. She’s literally been to Broadway shows, museums, the French Open, art openings, restaurants. She’s a service animal, so she’s allowed to go everywhere. She’s flown to Europe 14 times."

Cute name for a dog!

even though i hated this overall demi moore’s performance was great and i hope this begets a moorevival

Demi Moore has been a huge star my entire life, but I just looked and I think the only other Demi Moore movie I have ever seen is "One Crazy Summer."

I don't believe for a second you didn't watch Ghost, A Few Good Men, Disclosure, Indecent Proposal, etc.

Nope! Maybe a few minutes of a couple of them, but definitely not the entire thing. I don't think I've seen a minute of "A Few Good Men" besides the one scene/line. Maybe part of "Ghost" ? Subway fight or something? "Disclosure," I've seen nothing. (Are there lasers and Michael Douglas? I remember the trailer.) "Indecent Proposal," no, not a thing, I don't think.

Now, I have seen "Beavis and Butthead Do America" and "Hunchback of Notre Dame," she is a voice actor in those.

She came back on my radar a couple of years ago with a great supporting part in Please Baby Please

a fantastic movie (please baby please)

I don't believe for a second you didn't watch Ghost, A Few Good Men, Disclosure, Indecent Proposal, etc.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, September 27, 2024 3:05 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'm going to be 45 shortly and I was still too young to see these R-rated movies, and not exactly in the market for Ghost.

I definitely watched Nothing But Trouble though

I wonder if she got to meet Tupac

I'm about to turn 50 and I think I was too old. A lot of those came out in high school, and they were not the movies I was watching.

I’ve seen all those movies. Striptease and The Scarlet Letter also (which was wretched). Haven’t seen GI Jane tho!

This movie is a blast. A squelchy blast

It is objectively funny as fuck that ppl are posting “um telegraphed much??” about a film with a giant ass ass ass title card that says MONSTROELISASUE

sorry I accidentally didn’t say ass enough times

'm about to turn 50 and I think I was too old. A lot of those came out in high school, and they were not the movies I was watching.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, September 27, 2024 4:34 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

We're the same age. Except for the first, they came out wne I was in college

1992-1995

For sure by college, but certainly for several years beforehand, I guess I just wasn't watching those sorts of movies. I was lucky enough to have lived across the street from the student film group theater, which was like living across the street from the Criterion Collection. I know I watched plenty of mainstream stuff too, just not those movies.

Xps I'm pretty sure the only DM film I've seen is Ghost

Then again it seems I came of age just as her empirical years were cresting so I never really got round to watching those big famous 90s films

can i say that il monstro elisasue was soooo cute

For all the talk about the body horror horrificness, it really was the food sequences that were the grossest.

i was just loling hardcore through the entire french cooking sequence

just as her empirical years were cresting

I know you meant 'imperial,' d.l., but this is amazing.

i cant

Xp oh yes of course, soz

Those food sequences were enough to make me seriously consider veganism

DM is such a beacon - the passion of performance in her catalog, the subtlety, interpretation - she's always had a signature. she speaks softly but carries a big stick, and she could hang with the toughest of them. a real marvel of a performer and we're lucky to have her. easy to underestimate.

also her VOICE is its own icon

Saw this last week and a few thoughts need to be put down, adding spoiler tags but this thread is no place to be if you are not wanting spoilers.

Saw this in a theatre full of squeamish normies, totally the best way to see it.

Was everything after the traffic accident meant to be a dream, as the lack of physical damage after the crash and flashbacks to the motorcycle hitting her made me wonder if this was all going on at the point of her dying and trying to find a way to 'come back' to her career/desirability, jacobs ladder style

that thought did go away, after realising this only ascribes to its own internal logic.

the visual link between the ketchup stain on the star at the beginning, and her decomposing to schmutter on the star at the end, made me wonder if this was all supposed to be our dream, and none of it actually happened, see dying dream theory above

the taped on face she attaches to MonstroElizaSue reminded me of the smell of Reeves & Mortimer, which only added to the unsettlingness of the last 20 mins

Further to the point, she's a morning workout TV personality, not a Hollywood star, despite her name being ostensibly on the walk of fame. At first I assumed that she'd started put as a famous actor and was now doing the TV exercise show to pay the bills, but I'm not so sure now. It feels more like she was put on the earth to be on The Show

Doesn't Quaid say that she won an Oscar a long time ago in that initial bathroom phone scene?

Revenge is on Mubi at the moment, which is another great movie that kind of bursts out of the confines of an overdone exploitation pic sub genre and gleefully sprays a lot of blood in yr face!

Both are kind of perfect midnight movies, though "Revenge" probably works better in that role as more of a subversive (or is it?) gonzo trip that is also 30 minutes shorter. I should probably re-watch it to see how it holds up, it's been a while! I'd say the director should make more movies, but she's batting 1000% so I'm cool with her taking her time.

I saw The Substance by myself in a city I don't know well on Tuesday and the place was pretty full, mainly women seeing it with their friends. It fucking ruled

otm how everyone immediately kind of starts giggling and talking to each other afterwards as if they've just been on a ride

The only thing I wish there had been a little more of was the reckoning between the two halves - when they finally confront each other it's breathtaking, shocking, feels like what the entire movie's been building up to - but it goes straight into beat em up mode which is yknow a totally valid pulpy choice but I would have liked to squirm in the interstices a little more

man…I didn’t really like this at all. it was a decent enough concept as far as faustus retreads go, but it could have benefited from even the slightest hint of subtlety. that this won best screenplay at cannes is baffling to me

I kind of enjoyed it well enough but essentially it's a stupid movie trying to be clever. Better to watch it as a trashy body horror flick and ignore the hamfisted attempts at satire. I did see it the week after my local fleapit showed Cronenberg's The Fly (it's body horror month here in Rochester MN!) which is approximately 10x better, but never mind.

i do not agree that this movie is trying to be clever

it’s also a movie about having an eating disorder

― ivy., Sunday, September 22, 2024 6:45 PM (three weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

how so? I thought parts of it were an interesting depiction of certain substance use disorders (most obviously alcohol, where you want just one more, one more, then wake up to the results the next morning), but I didn’t really see any parallels to eating disorders

recursive system in which you convince yourself the thing that is good for you, that exemplifies your self-control, that makes you an impossibly-constructed ideal that you and others (abstraction) could ever possibly love, is also the thing that is destroying you from within and without, is nullifying you, is turning your body into a container garden of horrors

also the main character has an actual eating disorder from the jump

also so much binging and purging throughout idk

yeah I don’t know… I am a recovering bulimic myself so I think I’d be somewhat sensitive to that but I don’t really see it. alcohol use disorder? sure

ok i’ve never really had a capital ED eating disorder so i’ll just kowtow to you on this

it seemed like a big theme to me too, which kind of came to a head with the scene where sue dreams she is pulling an entire chicken leg out of her belly button after it has humiliated her in public by poking out where it shouldn’t have, rendering her body, the pride of her life, disgusting and ridiculous.

and this idea of two halves of you, pushing and pulling against each other, one wanting everything to excess, the other disgusted by that

disclosure i have not had an ED but dated someone who did

Better to watch it as a trashy body horror flick and ignore the hamfisted attempts at satire.

This is how people who enjoyed this movie are enjoying this movie

whether it's about eating disorders or not, it's clearly about body dysphoria in general - most explicitly in THAT scene where she's so upset and dissatisfied about her looks, she can't bear to go out in public and lets down the schlumpy date guy

disclosure i have not had an ED but dated someone who did

― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Thursday, October 17, 2024 2:35 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i mean this is probably too general a claim but yeah every woman i’ve ever known has had or still has an eating disorder

It’s part of our training — I haven’t seen this movie but I used to get hella triggered by the “nutrition nazi” threads bc they were so restrictive. I look forward to seeing this movie but am going to have to leave during the teeth stuff scene.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d finished a movie and felt zero curiosity, zero sense of wonder, and nothing at all to ponder or contemplate. It felt like getting a piano dropped on your head.

― I myself care less for them (flamboyant goon tie included), Sunday, September 22, 2024 11:21 PM (three weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

the whole car ride home from the screening I struggled to explain to my partner why I ultimately didn't like it, and reading this made it all click into place for me.

beyond being gross, it wasn't 'challenging' in the sense I suppose i am seeking. however, I have told folks it's absolutely worth seeing and the day or two after I saw it I couldn't stop thinking about it. maybe that *is* it being challenging?

I def was thinking I had whatever issues I had with it and was gonna give it 4 stars on Letterboxd, but the amount that I couldn't stop thinking about it means automatic 4.5 upgrade

lol, that's the spirit

As opposed to like The Beast, which is a technically sound and good movie but I can barely remember what it was even about

"milk"

I liked the way the apartment made no architectural sense - the long curving hallway leading to a vast bathroom with fixtures dotted around it and a sizeable empty space behind. Accurate and tidy building work by Sue to make the tiled doorway too! 5/5 for the DIY, 3/5 for the film as a whole.

Maybe I’m just old and humourless but I was actively bored for 80% of this. The plot/themes were blandly obvious and although they went hard on the body horror I felt like everything on screen had been done before, and better. Endless Kubrick / Cronenberg references were grating and pointless, and if we’re to thrill with horror at a misconstructed body then Chris Cunningham delivers that ten times more viscerally in “Rubber Johnny”. I guess the high camp is the point but it felt like it was trying so, so hard.

I did like the score tho.

I liked the hyperreal visual feel of this - but overall it felt far too slick and superficial. It would have been more interesting I think if it had more of a tone of something like Polanski’s Repulsion, where it’s clear there’s a psychological effect at play distorting ‘reality’.

I basically liked this but have no real desire to watch again. So everyone otm

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/the-substance-shot-list-coralie-fargeat-awards-insider

i finally saw this and fucking loved it

i knew it was heavyhanded going in & i truly did not expect how emotional it would make me

the scene where demi is standing in front of the mirror naked before she takes the activator the first time made me truly bawl

just the way it uses US looking at HER as the subtext (or text, i guess, since there’s v little subtlety lol)

like you can already feel from the quiet way she is examining herself that she hates herself, but what we see doesn’t match the sad contempt in her eyes and fuck it was so real

and the date scene really rocked me, like very “i am in this scene and i do not like it”

and yeah all of the dissasociation and the food stuff and the YOU ARE ONE but they’re just fully hating each other

god it was real

but then the gross shit on top of that, all the gore & viscera & teeth & everything made it rule twice as much

and the superficiality is a veil of perception & that’s WHY its there. it’s so important to her story. like maybe the most important element that makes it work

all otm

on a separate note - movie wise i grew up with her, saw most of her big 80’s & 90’s movies so watching her in this was idk, like watching Cher or someone, just so much history with it being her in this role, i mean fuck if anyone’s body was more scrutinised with a public microscope at the time .. but man she still carries so much power in her quietest moments, & the way her eyes FLASH with emotion. She rules, I realized how much i had missed seeing her.

it seemed like a big theme to me too, which kind of came to a head with the scene where sue dreams she is pulling an entire chicken leg out of her belly button after it has humiliated her in public by poking out where it shouldn’t have, rendering her body, the pride of her life, disgusting and ridiculous.

and this idea of two halves of you, pushing and pulling against each other, one wanting everything to excess, the other disgusted by that

yeah that was horrible

The makers of this film have absolutely seen heavenly bodies

Now here's a read

https://deadline.com/2024/11/the-substance-box-office-demi-moore-1236178368/

I am about halfway through this move and I’m wondering about this of the color yellow throughout?

*movie

Another read

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/demi-moore-the-substance-crazy-scenes-1236062561/

Movin' With Demi

xxpost i was wondering the same! i havent investigated to find out but i need to

The Klobstance

https://www.rollingstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/R1325_Woman_Amy_Klobuchar.jpg?w=800

Xps to both, this article goes into it a little

https://www.vogue.com/article/why-does-demi-moore-wear-so-many-primary-colors-in-the-substance

But perhaps the most meaningful garment in the entire film is Elisabeth’s yolk yellow coat. This coat is her signature outerwear, and she wears it from the film’s beginning to end—a visual foreshadow of the process her body, like the splitting egg at the outset, is about to experience.

Sue’s morning “aerobics show” just being straight up soft porn was funny to me.

The bit where they fastforward a clip of the show and it's just a close-up of a bum going up and down in high-speed for much too long

The egg/yolk coat also (imo) represents the idea of a woman’s worth being held in her youth/beauty/eggs.
I absolutely loved this movie and VG otm and generous for writing it all out.

I successfully avoided the tooth scene and didn’t find the rest particularly upsetting or disturbing, probably because of the artful application of humor throughout. I felt the same way about Promising Young Woman.

teeth scene was absolutely my favorite :)

I get really bad intrusive thoughts from violent dental imagery but I’m sure it was well done! I was just protecting my psyche.

<3

Sue’s morning “aerobics show” just being straight up soft porn was funny to me.

The bit where they fastforward a clip of the show and it's just a close-up of a bum going up and down in high-speed for much too long

― Sade of the Del Amitri (dog latin), Monday, 18 November 2024 10:15 (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

big Showgirls energy here

Also reminded me o a lot of early 00s music videos/dance routines that catered to the gaze so to speak

Substance Year 0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qetW6R9Jxs4

yeah Sue was basically sentient American Apparel

lol yes

Both lead performances are great, the filmmaking is vivid, I got worn out on it before it was over. But I did like the closing scene.

I'm watching this now and its cool but I keep waiting for The Cryptkeeper to show up with some bad puns.

Hear there's this new hit, hot, bop, shadoowop movie out called the substance? Going to go see it tonight

(Things come slow to this antipodean)

Didactic and juvenile. A bad mixture (I would know)

Fgti otm. Piano dropped on head, sledgehammer to face; sure you'll remember it, but that's an indictment not a point of praise

Geez anything else you would like to add?

Sue’s workout show was really a slightly sharpened version of YouTube channels I’ve seen that just play looped clips of very fit people working out while beats play under them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chM_NDgSnvw

I watched this a couple weeks ago but just now got around to posting

re: the confusion about Elisabeth's career arc -- it's Jane Fonda, right? The timeline is different, but I can't believe she hasn't come up. Eliding the political activism, you have an acclaimed actor who has a second phase of their career doing aerobics videos. I don't think it can be understated how huge that entire thing was in the 80s

Watched this last week. I had started it the day after Thanksgiving, took a break about halfway through, then came down with stomach flu and had to wait until I was no longer feeling nauseous to finish the movie up!

I enjoyed it through and through. I think if I had any criticism, it would be that I was kinda expecting it to go darker and heavier at the end, where it went more broad and comedic

Ahhhhhhhh! It's a monster! Someone shoot it!

but I didn't spend too much worrying about that because the New Years Eve Show was such a treat.

Really wish I had the chance to see this in theaters though. The weekend I first heard about it, it was leaving local cinemas and there were only a few screenings left.

I don’t think I could watch this in a cinema ngl, feel the same about Society (1989)

Solid half-hour BTS thing from MUBI via its YouTube channel here -- primarily Fergeat with interview commentary and a sharp edit of on-site/on-set stuff. The last five minutes is all about the final scene TV show scene, and all the blood of course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H64HNvXrqU

I didn't watch the Golden Globes, but apparently Demi Moore made a point of saying this was the first time she ever won an acting award for anything.

"I really wasn't expecting that," Demi said after arriving on stage. She continued, "I'm just in shock right now. I've been doing this a long time, like, over 45 years, and this is the first time I've ever won anything as an actor, and I'm just so humbled and so grateful."

"Thirty years ago, I had a producer tell me that I was a 'popcorn actress,' and at that time, I made that mean that this wasn't something I was allowed to have. That I could do movies that were successful that made a lot of money, but I couldn't be acknowledged, and I bought in, and I believed that," Demi said while visibly choking up on stage.

She continued, saying, "And that corroded me over time to the point where I thought a few years ago that maybe this was it. Maybe I was complete. Maybe I've done what I'm supposed to do. And when I was at kind of a low point, I had this magical, bold, courageous, out-of-the-box, absolutely bonkers script come across my desk called The Substance."

What I love about the success of this film is that it's enjoyed by hardened horror/sci-fi/arthouse stans while having this runaway success at the awards and also resonating with more casual moviegoers too. And it's all been done without pulling any punches, and in a way that a majority of people would agree is original and largely unique.

I'm reasonably sure that Moore's GG speech secured her an Oscar nomination. It was already a strong possibility, but there are at least 8 women with a good shot at being one of the five Best Actress nominees, and she now feels like the safest bet. Too soon to say whether she'll win the award, but people love a comeback narrative.

this was the most fun I had watching a movie from 2023

omg the making-of that ned posted is sooooo good

It really is! A friend who is involved in screenwriting and low-budget filmmaking said it was absolutely inspiring in terms of seeing how Fargeat planned things out with the Lab in particular.

a new dream of mine is to fire a cannon of blood into an audience

Can't wait for the arena tour version of that.

Really good documentary, glad to see it was almost all physical effects, even when you really didn't need them to be physical.

e.g. shoogling a camera whilst pointing at neon light rollers = 100% more vibes than anything CG created.

Finally saw this last night and wowzers, that was great. Wife is too scared to watch it but I think she would like it. Trying to figure out if the 15 year old should see it.

I was expecting much more Black Swan, the Toxic Avenger vibe totally surprised me. The movie takes such a tonal shift at that point (Monstro Elisa-Sur) and it wobbles, threatening to become Difficult or Too Much and the movie flattens. Intentionally, and it works. Before she gets onstage everything we’ve seen has been horrible but with a sheen, awful but artful, like Requiem for a Dream. Onstage we see her through the audience’s reaction and the movie’s pivot from Prestige to Trash reinforces its themes. She’s just meat and parts onstage, and there’s that inconvenient blood thing.

The deliberate generic qualities and constant use of symbolism put things at a remove, none of it reads as reality but it feels real, and it manages to convey degradation on so many levels: parent to child, patriarchal, commercial/aesthetic degradation, to the self via drugs or self harm or food disorders or vanity or the need for approval, it’s simplicity allows it to contain so much. This movie hums, it resonates so much.

So good. Demi Moore was amazing.

fwiw I suggested my daughter, who saw "The Substance," go back and watch "Revenge" (which she had never heard of), and she loved that one, too.

This made a return to theaters this week, and I’m glad I finally saw it that way. I think it would be much less effective on a small screen.

I liked it a lot, although it seemed really derivative of Requiem for a Dream. And the Grand Guignol finale, while certainly designed for audience/critical shock and awe, was unnecessarily over the top to me.

For 'unnecessarily' you mean 'necessarily' of course. :-D

lol okay…

ESSENTIAL

Yeah, I thought the movie was a touch on the too-long side but I would not lose anything about the finale.

I liked it a lot, although it seemed really derivative of Requiem for a Dream.

wouldnt say 'really derivative' but as they both showed overly stylised descents into drug addition, both were taking water from the same well.

they also had WTF endings, but in very different ways....

Yeah I think you didn’t understand this movie if you think it’s about drug addiction . It’s about the pressures on women, both famous and otherwise, and the means they go to to achieve and maintain extreme beauty. The substance is far more analogous to Ozempic than it is heroin. Self-esteem and self-loathing are the two drumbeats of this film that drive the underlying story. I don’t know how anyone could watch the date scene in this film or the overeating scenes in this film and think “yep, drug addiction.”

Neither can I — that seems like an absurd interpretation.

It's also about the horror of subscription services.

I'm locked into my current internet contract for another 9 months and can confirm this is what the film is really about

Its so funny that I went into this only knowing, like, a picture of Demi Moore with smeared makeup and that it was a Fantastic Fest thing. I assumed it was going to be another of the 87-minute horror movies I always watch with my Alamo Drafthouse Season Pass and then it was this 140 minute disorienting pukefest

― gaz coomer (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, September 26, 2024 6:21 PM (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Re: running time, there's definitely a single point where any other movie would end. When Demi looks in the mirror and there's the first glimpse of Monstro Elisa-Sue, you could just roll the credits. That's what we're used to. That's an ending to this movie. However Fargeat just swerves off into another direction entirely for like 30 more minutes. It gratuitous and confusing, but it unquestionably provides another layer to the movie that turns it from "sardonic body horror thriller" to like "grindhouse-influenced art film"

I keep wanting to watch Revenge but it's umm I dunno I keep putting it on and then getting distracted or something. Worth it?

Yes

It's a blast

Yeah I think you didn’t understand this movie if you think it’s about drug addiction . It’s about the pressures on women, both famous and otherwise, and the means they go to to achieve and maintain extreme beauty. The substance is far more analogous to Ozempic than it is heroin. Self-esteem and self-loathing are the two drumbeats of this film that drive the underlying story. I don’t know how anyone could watch the date scene in this film or the overeating scenes in this film and think “yep, drug addiction.”

― gyac, Wednesday, January 22, 2025 6:25 AM (twelve hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Neither can I — that seems like an absurd interpretation.

― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Wednesday, January 22, 2025 7:27 AM (eleven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think its ok and good for art to be interpreted different ways by people with different experiences

I also think that. It doesn’t make this movie about drug addiction tho.

My bf and the 19 y.o watched this last night downstairs while I was dozing off to sleep. I had no idee what they were watching, but I was awoken by the KRANGGGG KRANGGGG KRANNGGGG KRANGGG of the music in I guess that end scene? And it really intruded into my half awake head and freaked the shit out of me.

I dont think I ever want to see this film based on what I've read of it.

well the director certainly thinks Requiem for a Dream was an influence

“I love this film and it was with me when I was writing,” said Fargeat. “When I discovered that film, I related so much to the crazy obsessiveness of wanting to make yourself better and just ending making yourself worse. And the crazy relationship between wanting to be seen and have your moment of glory and be loved by people who look at you, and the craziness that can make you do.”

“It was such a visceral movie,” said Fargeat. “The relationship a woman can have with her body, with food, with being obsessive, concerned about what she looks like, wanting to transform herself, and expressed in a very expressionist way, and a symbolical way, like the fridge.”

As Sara’s delusions start to involve the game show’s host and live studio audience on TV start to mock her, her refrigarator also comes alive and attacks her.

“(Aronofsky) knows how to step out the rules of reality. The lenses become a tool to tell what’s in the character’s mind. When things deform, it kind of represents the craziness, the mental space of the character,” said Fargeat.

I can definitely see the influence. A key difference to me is that I think Fargeat manages to sustain empathy for her characters through the horror, where Aronosky imo kind of wallowed in their suffering.

Congrats to Demi Moore and Fargeat!

“It was such a visceral movie,” said Fargeat. “The relationship a woman can have with her body, with food, with being obsessive, concerned about what she looks like, wanting to transform herself, and expressed in a very expressionist way, and a symbolical way, like the fridge.”

That’s obv what it’s about but idk, addiction is one of the ways that self-loathing can manifest & I do think the film shows that — not saying it’s the single thing the films about and it certainly doesn’t supersede those other themes but both Eliza and Sue are shown to have substance abuse issues (and not just with the yknow substance). When she’s banging her head against the floor telling herself to “stop it”… it’s not an insane connection to make I don’t think

But then I’m surprised some ppl don’t see it as dealing with disordered eating at all when to me it’s like, it’s right there from the opening credits!

Part of what makes this movie work for me is how it does work on so many levels.

Someone upthread mentioned mothers/daughters as a theme and that kind of blew my mind.

I think you can have that conversation without being insistent to the point of ignoring a quote that specifically speaks to the way Sara Goldfarb in Requiem feels about her body to make the point that the film is about drug addiction. It’s not. Sure, women are routinely talked about as pieces of meat. The camera routinely lingers on their disgust at their faces and their bodies and the end of the film has a grotesque monster that’s like a cosmic joke about the lengths Sue goes to to maintain her body and face, but sure, it’s definitely about drug addiction. The film tells you from the very first minute what this is about. Is it really so hard to acknowledge that?

Now if male viewers find it less relatable because it’s so precisely targeted at female fears and anxieties and hatreds and need to generalise it, that’s another story, but it doesn’t change what’s on screen.

I actually don’t think the film works on that many levels! It seems like an “I know authors who use subtext and they’re all cowards” movie (not derogatory) & like gyac says is being very upfront about the thing it wants you to take away. It reminds me of I saw the tv glow where it’d be ridiculous to say “it’s actually about capitalism/whatever” but prob true to say it’s also about capitalism/whatever

I can’t be bothered to scroll up to see if I mentioned it upthread but the scene where she’s screaming at the TV about Sue’s beauty secrets reminded me very much of this interview scene from Kyoko Okazaki’s Helter Skelter (also a female body horror classic).

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GeZQdszWoAEwjaU?format=jpg&name=large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GeZQds0WYAATJtD?format=jpg&name=large

Interviewer: What’s your beauty secret?
Liliko: Oh please! I don’t do anything really. And I eat tons…And, uh, I sleep a lot….I also like swimming. I do 2km once a week in the pool.
Interviewer: Then I guess your beauty secret is a very natural lifestyle.
Liliko (inner monologue): Moron! How could you buy that? You have no idea how hard I work to keep my weight down. How I leave my stomach so empty it keeps me awake and how even sleeping pills can’t knock me out. How much time and money I spend to keep my skin this fair. You idiots would never understand.

And yeah I think there’s definitely something to be said about capitalism too especially in light of how beauty is currency for these women and how Elisabeth’s work has faded away over time as she’s aged to basically an aerobics show in a tiny studio (compare her studio, which looks like a basement, to Sue’s which looks like a noughties music video) plus advertising toothpaste.

It's in large part thanks to capitalism that women in Elisabeth's position endure such withering scrutiny imo.

I guess you can argue: capitalism is the male-est gaze of all.

well yeah, and i think upthread we talked about whether if you had access to a fountain of youth, would you go back to your chauvinist boss and a job that chewed you up and spat you out?

if there's an addiction theme going on here it's an addiction to a brutal sexist and capitalist system

I actually don’t think the film works on that many levels! It seems like an “I know authors who use subtext and they’re all cowards” movie (not derogatory) & like gyac says is being very upfront about the thing it wants you to take away. It reminds me of I saw the tv glow where it’d be ridiculous to say “it’s actually about capitalism/whatever” but prob true to say it’s also about capitalism/whatever

― Sir Kock Farmer (wins), Thursday, 23 January 2025 09:52 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

wins otm. iirc there are multiple scenes where a character all but turns to the screen and says “just in case you were wondering, this is what this movie is about and what you should be taking away from it.” the use of flashback scenes that remind you of something or point out a connection you may have missed were also used in a very brechtian way, narrowing the scope of possible interpretations

i thought of this movie last night watching esther povitsky's movie, Drugstore June, on hulu. i didn't end up watching the whole thing. i was hoping it was going to be funnier because her stand-up is really funny. but its about a monster created by social media who has food binges and who is obsessed with beauty, etc. and beverly d'angelo is her mom and bev's face tells the tale of a long career in hollywood. her new teeth do too. there is more then one reconstructed face in esther's movie. also, in real life, esther povitsky's favorite movie is sunset boulevard. her youtube special from 2020 is way funnier though.

I'll always root for E.P. because we were in an improv class together 15 years ago, when she was in college.

You were in an improv class with Emilia Pérez?!

Yes and?

lol

Okay I watched Revenge. Very very good. Very slick and visceral. A much less complicated story, but excellently told. I like how a lot of visual themes, such as the star of her earring get carried through to the Substance. Fargeat likes a rampant corridor chase

And close-ups of butts.

She's got a thing for that kind of ridge that ripped people have in their front hip I've noticed

You were in an improv class with Emilia Pérez?!

― *The Anime＼(*^β^*)/ Ring (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, January 23, 2025 2:04 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yes and?

― LocalGarda, Thursday, January 23, 2025 2:10 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Nice.

I watched the first part of this movie on Halloween night as a nod to Halloween. That night I was surprised and delighted to have many trick-or-treaters for the first time in a while.

But I think because of my distressed mental state at the time, I couldn't finish it. The purposeful lack of a backstory and the generic story line, the reliance on solo acting and the blatantly obvious nods to classic films, and then even in the first half the over-the-top horror - together it all felt like a sledgehammer

I watched it again recently and finished it. The whole thing was pretty gross, and the ending was way over the top, but it was interesting enough that now I want to see it again

This might be the single grossest movie the most number of my normie friends have seen, it's wild!

I can't recommend it to any of my family or friends tbh - or I could, but they wouldn't like it

My 82 year old mother in-law liked it a lot. Ultra-normie.

i wrote about it on my 2024 movie-watching thread. too busy to do a 2025 movie thread:

I finally watched The Substance! I dug it. Kinda David Cronenberg's Tales from the Crypt. I really did expect The Cryptkeeper to show up halfway through. But, you know, that's just the nature of *be careful what you wish for* horror. It's always going to remind me of fairy tales and Twilight Zone and TFTC and Night Gallery and Creepshow and EC Comics. Also, that last half hour totally made the movie. It seemed a little long but it was all worth it in the end. Lots of fun. I like both of the Coralie Fargeat movies I've seen. I talked about the other one on here. I hope she gets a big budget action horror bloodbath to direct. She is good at blood and action and glitchy body noises. I've been watching Demi since General Hospital and I'll always be fond of her. She probably has some scary plastic surgery stories she could tell! I always wonder if people who have their face and body worked on for years have scary face and body dreams. There should be a book of scary face and body dreams. Also: visually, Fargeat has a cool eye. Which is why I want a ton more movies by her.

This movie was great. I applaud Fargeat's boldness. Demi Moore is great in it, I applaud her boldness, too.

It ramps up in such a way that I thought was extremely well done, i.e. very very slowly and gradually but persistently.

dog latin otm

I realize that pointing out citations and references is the most phallogocentric* way to talk about filmmaking and -viewing, BUT: The Vertigo score interpolation had me questioning my own sanity. "Jeeze, that really sounds like... Nooo, it couldn't possibly be." Now I really want to know what Fargeat thinks of Hitchcock.

*: The first time I wrote Fargeat's name, autocorrect thought I meant "Father."

This might be the single grossest movie the most number of my normie friends have seen, it's wild!

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 24 January 2025 01:48 (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, fr. I could only really compare it to some of the more "Extreme Asian Cinema" I used to watch with my horror buff friends in the 2000s in terms of shock and awe and grossness

ctrl-F "Cinderella" no results. The bird's eye view of her twirling in that blue ball gown was magnificent.

Lotta bird's eye view in this movie now that I think about it. Kind of an interesting storytelling device. Unforgettable shower scenes.

And there is something about screens, and windows, and pinup posters, and flatness. (For an instant, I really thought the cutout face mask was going to work, and the message of the movie was "Showbiz people are just that shallow.")

Also the moment when Elisabeth first wakes up under Sue's sleeping body. After pulling herself free, we see her touching it, admiring it. I know this isn't "what the movie is about" but there were moments that felt very social media, very Instagram, very personal brand. Who hasn't spent time impressed with the perfection of their own externalized ideal self, whether in swimsuit pics or a really funny pinned tweet? Then again, maybe this is one of those things some feminist theorists talk about, where society as a whole begins to reproduce forms of abjection and alienation that were originally limited to women.

did anyone on here have thoughts about why the only substance user she met was a man? the nurse. i mean obviously in hollywood fear of aging is for everyone but it was a choice to have it be that guy. and have it be someone not in the business.

part of me wondered if the other user is the person who invented the substance. his "young" version seemed a keen proselytiser of it and said she'd make "a good candidate" or whatever, whereas the older version seemed to have quite a different attitude. so my guess is that he had gone so far down the rabbithole he was no longer in control of his two lives in any way and was watching his younger self run rampant

Maybe more of an "Introduce a friend for mega di$counts on your next prescription!!" deal?

Well there's only one other box in the room, so maybe my theory is wrong because why would the owner have a box?

A Different Man would make a good double bill with The Substance

did anyone on here have thoughts about why the only substance user she met was a man? the nurse. i mean obviously in hollywood fear of aging is for everyone but it was a choice to have it be that guy. and have it be someone not in the business.

yes - something very heavy and sad in that moment

New MUBI video up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KASLYEChinM

“Every age has its own perfect,” Fargeat says. “Now, there’s Ozempic; before, we had amphetamines. Every culture has its own standard of what is valued. But it’s always the same violence. And it’s a trap. It’s not going to solve the way you can have a fulfilling relationship with the world. To me, it’s not something you can fight on the personal level. The whole world has to change to make you at ease. I truly believe that it’s a fight you can’t win on your own.”

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/feb/03/i-was-trying-to-explode-the-idea-of-beauty-coralie-fargeat-on-the-substance-women-and-hollywood

Okay, okay - daughters were curious to see this after reading some cringeworthy online reactions. I was able to dial in to its B movie wavelength successfully and had a pretty good time. Due in part to this thread.

I'd struggle to call this a B movie but maybe? To me it's a AAA movie, a futureshock

It's a total B movie, albeit with A execution. Just like her other movie.

Yeah this is top of the line pulp with a message that can’t be missed and isn’t intended to be.

Saw on Reddit that they made a funny by labeling the Blu/4K combo pack discs with Demi on the former disc and Qualley on the latter.

Love it:

https://gizmodo.com/coralie-fargeat-star-wars-fan-film-the-substance-2000565012

Also:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMicrbtjFKU

Good stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOw_nA5AVdA