★★ out of 5 -- Rated: R -- Run time: 2 hours, 20 minutes
Sixty-one-year-old Demi Moore has been busy making the media rounds, promoting her new film “The Substance,” which has an interesting premise about the lengths an aging, once-acclaimed Hollywood actress will go to in order to reclaim her youthful beauty and revitalize her career.
This horror/sci-fi film is generating some buzz, getting the Best Screenplay award at Cannes and an audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival.
It was written and directed by filmmaker Coralie Fargeat, who previously made the French action movie “Revenge.” She was inspired to write the script after becoming depressed about turning 40 and feeling she was no longer going to be valued.
The film begins with some very stylish visuals, quickly capturing the career arc of Oscar-winner Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore). Fargeat crafts a simple but very clever sequence depicting the construction of a brand-new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In an almost time-lapse-like fashion, the shiny tribute quickly deteriorates, becoming cracked and dirty, with garbage being dropped on it while off-screen voices mock the honoree as a “has-been.”
We then discover that Sparkle is now hosting a Jane Fonda-like workout show on network television but is being pushed out by a smarmy TV executive who wants a younger replacement.
That scene-stealing role is played by a wonderfully disgusting Dennis Quaid, who oozes grossness with every action, be it eating seafood in a restaurant or dressing down subordinates. (By the way, Quaid took over the role when the previously cast Ray Liotta passed away.)
A depressed Sparkle sees her world falling apart but soon receives a mysterious offer to become “a better version of herself” by injecting a chemical formula called, “The Substance.”
Of course, there are all kinds of rules and requirements that she’s supposed to abide by, which come into play later in the film.
Without giving too much away, Sparkle takes the plunge. After a lengthy, fully nude transformation/birthing scene, a younger version of the actress emerges -- played by 29-year-old Margaret Qualley. (She’s the daughter of actress Andie MacDowell who was previously seen in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and “Poor Things.”)
The younger Sparkle rebrands herself as “Sue” and is quickly cast as the new host of Sparkle’s old TV show. Director Fargeat outdoes the makers of “Baywatch” by spending a LOT of time showing lingering close-ups of Qualley’s youthful body as she leads exercise classes in every suggestive position possible.
Before long, personal ambitions kick in, leading to increasing conflicts. However, the movie’s initially interesting premise about aging soon goes by the wayside with the final third of this 2-hour, 20-minute film. It becomes so violent, graphic and ridiculously over-the-top that it feels as if the filmmakers decided to make a whole different movie -- maybe a gross-out, horror parody?
The jaw-dropping amount of blood showering the actors in one big climactic scene makes the prom finale from “Carrie” look family-friendly in comparison.
People sitting around me at the screening I attended were groaning at some of the concluding imagery of this film. It’s easy to see why a worried Universal decided to back out of releasing “The Substance,” letting the smaller Mubi handle the distribution.
It’s a shame that some respectable performances by both Moore and Qualley are lost in a movie that after a good start, just loses its way.