Under the Influence of | The Substance (2024) Movie Review | #OscarsHomework
The cats and I hereby certify Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance as a work of cultural significance and artistic merit 🏆
I LiveSky film reviews over on BlueSky, and then piece them together with commentary to make my full reviews here on Medium before they go to Letterbox’d. Please subscribe anywhere/everywhere you can for more of my shenanigans…
Well, if you missed the unmitigated disaster that was The Apprentice, I envy you.
I clearly needed a palate-cleanser (frankly, after that nightmare of a barely-movie, just throwing out the old palate entirely and getting a new one wouldn’t have sounded crazy), and I’ve been saving The Substance — nominated for five Oscars: Best Picture, Best Actress (Demi Moore), Best Director (Coralie Fargeat), Best Makeup & Hairstyle and Best Original Screenplay (Fargeat again; she writer/director-ed this bad girl) — as a silver bullet to put in my head when #OscarsHomework got to be overwhelming and awful.
It happened sooner than I’d thought it would, but here we are.
I’ve already spoiled my judgment of the film, as I always do, with the star-rating below the poster. Five. Phenomenal film.
After enduring almost all of the unendurable burden that is The Apprentice, I was like a film junkie, needing that fix fast.
Come on, good movie, come on, good movie, come on c’mon c’mon c’mon…
Thank Gos, I didn’t have to wait long.
I’ve got to be honest with you guys. Like, I really do. It’s one of the firm and unyielding principles of this self-imposed non-job, and so with full transparency and an open heart, I say:
I might have been so high on this film because of how awful my experience watching The Apprentice was. The Substance got all of the bounce and benefits-of-doubt in the world, and it connected with me and connected early.
And then and thereafter, I think I clung to this film for dear cinematic life as soon as it seemed able to support my weight.
We’ll see for ourselves as we parse the BlueSky review in the cold, sober light of day. I think it was also day when I was bleeting, but it’s colder and soberer now, and you’ll just have to take my word for it.
To a certain extent, movies are vibes, and The Substance aced my vibe check in its first minute of its runtime.
Some films take a little while to announce themselves, in the sense of what they really are or what they’re really about. I’ll often find myself wondering for a minute, a few minutes, maybe even 8 or 10 (most good screenwriters know that it’s not good for anyone to wonder for much longer than that, unless wondering is part of the point).
The Substance announced itself unmistakably in its opening scene, at least as far as it needed to to convince me that I was watching a real film.
What is a real film, you ask? (If you didn’t, go back and do it, because I need you to for the next part)
I said in my last review that what I prize is substantive, worthwhile storytelling. If we’re comparing from just this same Oscars season, A Different Man and A Real Pain already qualified, for me.
The Brutalist, as well. I had my issues with its length and editing, but it features a handful of the best acting performances I’ve seen recently, and it’s the sort of story of struggle and triumph and suffering-for-one’s-art that I’m an absolute sucker for.
The Substance belongs on the list, too. There’s no question about it.
The Substance is — I’ll say it — substantive.
Like all good films, it had me thinking Big Thoughts, not all of them pleasant or good ones.
As writer-director Coralie Fargeat says in the Director’s Statement in the press kit for the (I think?) Cannes Film Festival:
“Women’s bodies.
THE SUBSTANCE is a film about women’s bodies.”
The whole statement is well worth reading, but also, there’s literally nothing in it that you couldn’t have gotten from just watching the film.
That’s one of the telltale signs of a good film: the writer and director said everything they had to say that was worth saying between the credits. They put it all on the screen. Of course, in this case, both are Fargeat, and her film had plenty to say.
I hate to keep comparing it to a much-worse film, but in every scene of The Apprentice, I was asking myself: why is this being shown to me? What is this movie trying to say, and how does this scene, this interplay between characters, serve that purpose and vision?
Well, simple answer there: The Apprentice had none, or none worth committing to film. It was intermittently compelling as it stumbled into and out of scenes worth watching at all, but it ultimately is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Not so, The Substance. It signifies, and is significant.
It’s not flawless. It’s not a perfect film, and not all of it works for me. The film trafficks in a slick and stylish sort of heightened, surreal impressionism, and as it escalates (neither rapidly nor steadily, but at the perfect pace) into violence and abject madness, it loses its grip here and there: some makeup-work and effects and the like, the precise execution of this horrific vision. To wit, I’m not convinced that the Monstro moment worked for me, though I think I get exactly what that chapter of the story was going for.
I say it all the time: no film is perfect, but some films are so good, they might as well be.
The Substance is so good — has so much to say and says it so well — it might as well be perfect.
If I have a criticism of The Substance, it’s that it’s a bit precious and heavy-handed, at times. But if we all agree with the premise that the world/society-writ-large is doing literal damage to girls and women every day, with only ever-increasing efficacy, then maybe a heavy hand is what’s called for?
Your mileage may vary.
I can’t separate my feelings about this film and about women’s bodies from my feelings about my own body. I am not a woman, nor was I raised a girl, but I am taking estradiol and spironolactone. It’s not to become a woman. That’s not my end goal, nor does that strike me as achievable or worth efforting towards.
But what the hormones are doing to my body and how I feel about it, I realized watching The Substance, means I’m also (voluntarily? my lived experience doesn’t feel all that voluntary, but it is) caught up in the rat race of objectifying, consuming and ultimately discarding women’s bodies (not that I wasn’t before, but it’s decidedly more personal for me now).
I need to have a take on these things, I guess. I need to ponder this dynamic between femininity, womanhood and society, because, like it not, I’m caught up in it, as well.
Everyone is, it turns out.
I wrote in my notes (which you can see on Insta), “Everything you’re looking at means something,” in The Substance.
I noted a very poignant, quick moment wherein the camera (which is a character in this film, by the by, and I think represents the Male Gaze or more broadly society’s beholding of women’s bodies and its corporate sense of entitlement to behold them) lingers on a very young girl in a striking blue dress. She is demure and, following as her shot does the hypersexuality of the preceding material, it's startling. The next cut is to a low angle of a line of dancers’ bare asses (they’re wearing costumes, but those costumes reveal a lot, natch).
This girl is just grist for the mill. I get it. It's both exciting to realize what Fargeat, the competent, dynamic filmmaker is saying, and deflating to realize what it says about me and us, the problem we collectively have to reckon with.
And the problem is so enormous and omnipresent that the stray heavy-handedness, too-precious moment or imperfectly-calibrated gag didn’t detract from the film’s impact or message for me.
I love it when movies take big swings, big bites at the creative apple, and this movie is aggressive in advancing its purpose and vision. It honestly got me hyped. When someone is excited to share their message, plus I’m open to receive it and the message is worthwhile — that’s when the magic happens.
And this movie is movie magic. It transcends the trappings of film and does something bold, exciting and new whilst vivisecting and living inside of a societal dynamic at least as old as rape, itself.
See The Substance. I think you owe it to yourself, if you favor art and being challenged, and you agree with Socrates (you say Socrates, I say Socrates) that the unexamined life is not worth living, is actually no kind of life at all.
Your mileage may vary. It might not be comfortable or fun or exciting or pleasant, and it might be challenging, provocative and uncomfortable. Maybe your experience watching The Substance will be all of those things.
But the experience you have, and the thoughts you wrestle with afterwards, will be well worth the journey, because this film has something substantive and worthwhile to say, and it says it effectively.
That’s — for my money — the whole fucking point.
#OSCARSHOMEWORK
My #OscarsHomework watch progress!
Best Pic 🟩⬛🟩🟩⬛⬛⬛🟩🟩🟩
Best Actress ⬛⬛⬛🟩🟩
Best Actor 🟩🟩⬛🟩🟩
Sup. Actress 🟩🟩⬛🟩🟩
Sup. Actor 🟩🟩⬛🟩🟩
Best Animated ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
Best Int’l ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
Directing 🟩⬛⬛🟩🟩
#oscaround
Emilia Pérez (2024) is up next. Follow me on BlueSky for the live bleet movie review.
Best Picture
I know, I know. I’m way behind on Oscars Homework.
Oh, well. I’ve been employing a proactive, some-might-say-aggressive self-care philosophy lately, so I’m moving at the pace I move.
Nevertheless, even without Nickel Boys, I’m Still Here, Emilia Pérez and Anora, I think I'm ready to call Best Picture.
It should be The Substance.
I would have preferred this category if it had a different nomination class, say, one that included A Real Pain and A Different Man, both of which deserve to be in contention.
But we play the cards we’re dealt, and AMPAS dealt us this odd-duck hand of 10 cards (too many? I guess it hurts no one to expand the field, and would theoretically hurt films if one were to contract it back to 5 or 6, but also, even at 10, I still feel like major, important films are left off anyway, so…)
I think The Brutalist is the more-likely candidate for what the most thirstily look-at-me organization in the (arts) world would prefer to be seen to favor. It’s more in line with the Academy's precedent, and though both films are challenging, The Brutalist is the kind of Randian, lone-genius-suffers-for-true-art challenge they tend to prefer.
I hope not, though!
I mostly loved The Brutalist, but if This Year in Film has or had a moment, it was The Substance.
What exactly is it we’re here to reward, anyway? 🤔
Speaking of which, to bolster my prediction of The Brutalist taking Best Picture over the film that deserves to win, The Substance, here are some ways Coralie Fargeat’s satirical scalpel of a film already got snubbed:
- Best Supporting Actor — you could totally argue Dennis Quaid deserves a nom for Best Supporting, but given that this film is by and about women, no one is going to fuss that a man got left out, and I think his performance was also too real and ugly and true for the people that give awards to want to be seen to give awards to it.
But he crushed it, and was a vital part of this story, standing in for Yes, All Men. - Best Cinematography — if the Substance were in this field, it would deserve to win. There is a lot of stylish and striking cinematography this year, but to me, even in a crowd that includes Nosferatu and Dune: Part Two, The Substance stands out.
I’d also argue A Real Pain deserves inclusion in the field, but even so, I’d still give the award to The Substance. Except I can’t, because it inexplicably wasn’t nominated. The Brutalist is a viable candidate for this one, too, and I wouldn’t throw a fit about that, but the film that deserves this (that I’ve seen) isn’t here. - Best Costuming — I think this is going to be Conclave’s award, but there are other films that did it just as well or better, and The Substance’s costuming is not only incredible, but also inextricably tied into the storytelling and purpose and vision.
You could argue that The Substance deserves Best Costuming, and I’d totally buy it, but it’s not being considered. - Best Editing — I’m not ready to call this one yet because I haven’t seen Emilia Pérez (it’s next; follow me on BlueSky for my LiveSky review), but it’s crazy that The Substance isn’t even in the mix. I suspect, without having seen EP, that The Substance would probably be the worthiest entry into the field, except it’s not in the field, so another film is guaranteed to win this award.
- Best Score — It would be mind-boggling to me if any film other than Wicked wins this award.
Still, The Substance’s score was so effective, it should at least have been considered. Disgraceful.
What I conclude from all that is that if it comes down to either The Brutalist or The Substance in the mind of a lot of voters, the one they’d rather see lauded and feted is likely to be the safer choice, The Brutalist.
It should be The Substance. The Substance is timely, and — in the field we have — is (for my money) this year's Best Picture.
