The Elixir of Chaos: Unraveling "The Substance" and Its Bewildering Transformation

In a departure from the standard onscreen body horror of the moment, there is a tale of transformation with a sci-fi twist. This film, made for MUBI, has a runtime of nine to thirteen minute, depending on your viewing experience. It is called The Substance, and it was awarded an eight-minute standing ovation at Cannes last month. What is it about this film that has audiences falling out of their seats? Beautiful and Blasphemous: A Journey Into ‘The Substance’ (from 1:32pm UK time).

A Glimpse Into the Abyss: The Trailer Unveiled

It starts with a trailer, the film’s first long one, which shows off the devastating talents of Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid. Written and directed by Coralie Fargeat (who also directed the rollicking Revenge, from 2017), the film is about Elisabeth Sparkle (played by Moore), former host of an aerobics show who, on her 50th birthday, finds herself standing at a fork in the road. To one side of that fork is a mysterious laboratory with its spectacular potions of neon green anti-ageing serum, which promise Sparkle ways to reach back beyond her flaws, back to the paradise of her youth, of pure beauty. From here, our heroine’s journey becomes an ordeal of beauty and terror.

THE ESCAPE INTO TRANSFORMATION

We first see Sparkle (played by Margaret Qualley’s real-life mother) embracing the serum that will turn her into a version of herself who’s also pretty much a version of Margaret Qualley. But as the opening to the trailer portends, the ‘ground-breaking, anti-aging, miraculous substance’ that Sparkle is using comes with strings attached: it leads her slowly to suffer the side-effects of her own misuse, which include everything from paranoia and a loss of impulse control to, eventually, physical changes that make her look more like an alien than a supermodel. It’s an escape story of sorts, with Sparkle trying to find an escape from her age and flaws that instead lands her in an existential hell.

The Warning Unheeded

One of the most striking images in the trailer is just a black screen with the following voice-over: ‘the is . You can’t run from yourself.’ Does the film suggest that the most that we can ever be is ‘the’ of our selves, and that an attempt to be more than that is dangerous? As Sparkle learns more about the power of the serum, she comes tantalisingly close to a transformation which might fuse her identity with that of Qualley, changing her into the woman Qualley has become as though by magical means.

Chasing Perfection: A Path to Monstrosity?

We can interpret the eerie imagery of the trailer — a fly stuck in fluid to Dennis Quaid feasting on, among other things, a ‘live stream’ — as hints that Sparkle’s fate mirrors that of a metamorphosing arthropod. Ultimate questions about human aesthetic value, ageing and self-mutilation lurk behind these delicate threads: will our heroine be utterly consumed by the ‘substance’? By the ‘dark side’ of being Sparkle? Or will she find redemption through all of the chaos?

The Fabric of "The Substance"

Running at two hours and 20 minutes, the film will offer ample opportunity for audiences to engage with a story that promises to deliver real suspense, horror and existential anguish. When The Substance is released in cinemas across the US on September 20, they will be taken on a journey into the depths of our souls, exploring concepts of beauty and identity and the ineluctable truths of what it means to be human.

ESCAPE: The Underlying Theme

At its heart, The Substance is a reflection on escape, whether it’s escape from ageing, escape from adulthood responsibility, or escape from your inner demons and shadows. But, as Coralie Fargeat’s film expertly shows, the most important flight is not from what frightens us, but within ourselves.

Embracing the Inevitable

The Substance stands as a testament to the power of the desire to transform and the dangers of trying to escape the mutable elements of life. Audiences get set to escape onscreen, but the actual drug that provides it is not what sets us free – it’s the acceptance of the transformative elements of life, no matter how difficult to undergo. The Substance allows us to consider what we fear or desire, and to consider our endless pursuit of improving our physical selves in an imperfect world. The Substance holds a mirror up to the nature of transformation, and what we see is the abyss, yet it is also the beauty that happens in that dissonance of change.