Demi Moore’s performance in this thriller is career-defining

Demi Moore, who started her film career in 1981, is astonishing in scene after scene, her body juxtaposed with the – let’s say unconventional – things she is doing.

Demi Moore in The Substance.

“We need her young, we need her hot and we need her now.’’

So orders television network boss Harvey (a febrile Dennis Quaid, balancing satire and truth) early in the extraordinary body horror thriller The Substance.

He’s in the men’s toilets, urinating as he speaks. The bathroom is glittering white, with bright red doors on the stalls, characteristic of the striking visual design of this film.

What he doesn’t know is that the TV star he wants to replace, Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore in a career-defining performance), is in one of the cubicles, hearing his every word.

She hosts a popular aerobics show not unlike the videos Jane Fonda did in the 1980s. As far as Harvey is concerned, she’s no longer young or hot and so is sacked on her 50th birthday.

The moment he tells her it’s time to go is remarkable for making something normal look grotesque. He is in the dining room, peeling and eating prawns and filmed only in close-up. She looks on, wordless. There is much more of this grotesquerie to come.

I think the Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things, Kinds of Kindness) is the most weirdly original film-maker working today. The writer-director of this movie, French film-maker Coralie Fargeat, gives him a run for his money.

French film director and screenwriter Coralie Fargeat. Picture: AFP

This her second film, following the 2017 thriller Revenge, which is also unusual. It is filmed with an intense focus on colour, and at unexpected angles. It is stunning to watch, even when what happens it hard to look at.

Fargeat won best screenplay for the movie at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and rightly so. The story that unfolds blends Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Elephant Man and more.

The substance of the title is a lime green liquid that can only be ordered by phone and delivered to a private mail box. Elisabeth is promised that when she injects it she will become the “best version” of herself, “younger, more beautiful, more perfect”.

Yet this is no simple fountain of youth. The substance works via cellular division. Essentially the “matrix”, in this case Elisabeth, cleaves off (and that’s a nice way of putting it) another person, younger and more beautiful. In her case, it is Sue (the amazing Margaret Qualley, who had roles in Poor Things and Kinds of Kindness). Sue takes over the aerobics show and ratings go through the roof.

The catch is that under the rules of the substance, the host and the “other self” must swap every seven days, one living in the world, the other comatose in the bathroom on a drip.

This works for a while until Sue wants more that seven days. When Elisabeth calls the helpline, she is told, “What has been used on one side is lost to the other side. There is no going back”.

Sue persists and what happens to Elisabeth will be a leading contender for best makeup at the 2025 Oscars. As will what happens to Sue. As the helpline notes, “There is no she, no you. You are one”. And one, in this context, is a truly horrifying number.

Moore, who started her film career in 1981, is astonishing in scene after scene, her body juxtaposed with the — let’s say unconventional — things she is doing. If I had to pick one, it is when she goes ballistic in the kitchen, cooking every bird and beast she can find, because the excess food will derail Sue.

This is a film unlike any other you will see right now. It will not be to everyone’s taste. For this reviewer, who craves originality, it is a winner. Any woman who has reached an age where she feels “invisible” will relate to it, and perhaps to Elisabeth’s decisions.

The opening scene — long and perceptively filmed — starts with Elisabeth’s star being installed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It ends with the star cracked, dirty, unnoticed and a passer-by dropping a hamburger on it. That sorts of sums it up.

The Substance (MA15+)

140 minutes
In cinemas

★★★★