The Substance

Demi Moore satirises Hollywood ageism in this audacious and gory feminist body horror that was the talk of this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Elisabeth Sparkle is a faded fiftysomething star who’s just been fired from her TV workout show by a sleazy executive. Then she learns about ‘The Substance’: a mysterious injection that “unlocks your DNA”, birthing a young, gorgeous version of yourself from your own spine. Of course, there’s a catch: every seven days, one body heads out into the world while the other enters recuperative stasis. So when Elisabeth’s ambitious younger self refuses to surrender her newfound fame, the elder begins paying the price… with a gruesome physical disintegration.

In a daringly deranged lead performance, Moore leans in to Elisabeth’s professional self-loathing with zeal. And as her rebellious clone, Margaret Qualley (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) matches the mayhem at every turn, while the cast that includes Dennis Quaid revels in going ham with the film’s outrageous premise. French director Coralie Fargeat (Revenge) ruthlessly marshals Cronenbergian tropes, from 1980s-inspired production design to some truly superlative prosthetics, provocatively depicting the turmoil of ageing as a woman in a patriarchal world: the horror that part of oneself may be gone forever.

Directed by Coralie Fargeat

2024 | USA, United Kingdom, France | English language | DCP

Rated R