The Substance

I'm just gonna start a thread about this one, if anybody has thoughts, pls share 'em here.

OK, to start out, this felt like a cautionary sci-fi film modeled on The Portrait of Dorian Gray, co-directed by David Cronenberg, Brian Yuzna, and possibly Lucky McKee??? You'll know what I mean by that, if you've seen it.

Demi Moore looks QUITE respectable for her age, in this. She would have been 60 or 61 during filming, and she's plausibly playing a woman just turning 50. But, as good as she looks, she doesn't look young enough for the retro exercise TV show she is the star of. (Sorry about that sentence. That was pretty bad).

She is approached, during an unexpected visit to the hospital, by a young male nurse who says she is a suitable "candidate." (We gradually learn what that means). He gives her... I was distracted, but it must have been a flash drive, floppy disc, or CD-ROM... this movie is right up there with It Follows, when it comes to lack of clarity about what decade it is set in.

She goes home and sticks the little data storage unit thingie into whatever computer she has, and is shown a little video that is sort of a mysterious little commercial for something called The Substance. It promises to "release a new her," or something to that effect.

Not to wreck it too too too much, but eventually her soul comes to more or less inhabit a much younger and hotter body, that of Margaret Qualley. I am still trying to recall who MQ reminds me of, it is driving me up a wall. Facially, Kathryn Newton, overall physically, Jennifer Connelly, but there was some other famous girl 20-25 years ago that she looks like, whose name is eluding me. It doesn't make any difference anyway, unless MQ was deliberately chosen and made up to resemble this girl whose name I can't remember, to connote something important abot her character. Anyway, whatever, who cares.

Basically, the bulk of the movie is about how this poor woman's entire identity is impossible for her to disconnect from her own ideal of beauty. She comes to despise her true self, and starts to believe all the hype around the TV show she remains that star of (in her new body, in her new identity).

The ending made me think of Society, bigtime. So, yah, that's why I thought of Brian Yuzna. Well, maybe the last quarter of the movie. Nothing wrong with that.

There is quite a bit of nudity, soooo that's always nice. But, the way that it is sexual is really aimed at a hetero female audience, I would say, if that means anything to you. It's sort of about the seductiveness of a sexy identity to women, I would say. It's certainly not unpleasant viewing, as a guy, but I don't think we are really the audience the director had in mind.

Also, it reminded me a lot of the 1995 Jennifer Rubin film Wasp Woman. Had to mention that. WW actually might have been a movie for the SyFy channel, or whatever it was called in the mid-90s. Or... maybe for Skinemax. Either one.

Anyway. It's pretty interesting, it shows thought and work, aaaaaand I'm gonna give it two thumbs up. Kirk out.