Get the latest gossip
Are We Getting The Substance All Wrong?
The Demi Moore horror film is being hailed for its feminism, but its real strength is in its portrayal of addictive behavior.
What’s really of interest to Fargeat is the relationship her protagonist, Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), an Oscar-winning actor turned fitness celeb, has with an industry that’s openly intent on treating her as disposable, yet that keeps her hooked with the siren song of public affirmation. All the red flags surrounding the Substance, which comes with stern usage warnings and has to be retrieved from a locker room accessible only by hunching under a half-raised grate in an alley, threaten to overshadow its potential benefits. For all the swaggering grossness of The Substance, there’s a visceral and emotional rawness to the scenes where Elisabeth awakens to find her body gnarled and aged because Sue overstayed her welcome, or takes up binge eating out of boredom and unhappiness.
Or read this on VULTURE