No one who watches this twisted Demi Moore film about a special anti-ageing treatment will forget it. But is it a feminist masterpiece or shallow, misogynistic and exploitative? In The Substance , the much-discussed, opulently stylised and lavishly gory gonzo horror from French director, Coralie Fargeat, a disembodied voice playing over a marketing video for a tenebrous new beauty product asks: "Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself – younger, more beautiful, more perfect?" It's a question which captures Fargeat's intent – to explore, through the medium of blood-spatter, thrills and a splash of sci-fi, what happens when this desire to fit the mould of beauty standards gets out of hand. Despite its relatively straightforward mission, The Substance is proving one of the most divisive films this year.
When it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, it was touted by Indiewire's critic David Ehrlich as "an epic, audacious, and insanely gross body horror masterpiece". Other critics tipped Fargeat's film to follow in the footsteps of another classic of the genre, the turbocharged, flesh-and-metal-fusing film Titane (2021) , in clinching the Palme d'Or. Then there have been the film's naysayers.
Critics have variously accused The Substance of pandering to the male gaze , making the older female body appear terrifying and even lacking the very thing in its title : substance. The film begins as celebrity aerobics instructor Elisabeth ( Demi Moore ) turns 50 and.