“The Substance” blowtorches a single idea for two hours and 20 minutes, and narratively it turns to ashes by minute 40. It’s easier for a movie to become a talking point that way. Film festival buzz, which “The Substance” enjoyed at its Cannes world premiere, tends to emanate from movies that dictate a point, early and often, rather than aim a lot of complementary or even contradictory ideas at each other.
The Cannes buzz regarding Demi Moore is a different matter. The film wouldn’t work at all without her, probably, and doesn’t really work with her, because she’s so much better than her material. The technique and sly emotional detail Moore brings to “The Substance” is the film’s substance.
French writer-director Coralie Fargeat has created a fairy tale of one woman’s miraculous if horrific career revival, with Moore portraying 50-year-old Elisabeth Sparkle, one-time Oscar winner and former A-lister, a survivor of a business built on the marketing of female flesh. For years, she has hosted a popular-ish aerobics fitness TV show. But the leg warmers suggest ’80s-era Jane Fonda, as does Elisabeth.
Her producer — a manic sleaze played by a rip-roaring Dennis Quaid — decides to go in a different direction with the show. Somewhere fresher, younger, in the 18-to-30-year-old range. Out of a job and alone in her glassy Hollywood hillside home, Elisabeth spies a newspaper ad promising a way to develop a brighter and tighter edition of herself.
Her miracu.