I think what threw me about this often delightful, often gross body horror was the expectation from reading the synopsis that it was feminist. It has made me muse on what my expectations are when that term is applied to a film, and I think it is about more than putting women’s stories at the centre, It’s about stories of women’s power and autonomy.

The premise for The Substance has all the hallmarks for saying something interesting about how women are allowed, or not, to age in Hollywood in particular. Demi Moore, in a role that feels like it will put her back in the spotlight as someone who doesn’t take herself too seriously (a la Nicolas Cage), plays Elizabeth Sparkle. She won an Oscar once and now has an 80s style fitness program on television that has been a huge success. She has turned 50 though and the network boss, played like a cartoonish Batman villain by Dennis Quaid, wants to replace her with someone young and new and hot.

Visiting a doctor, a young creeper nurse assesses her as being suitable for a particular program and before long she receives information about ‘the substance’. It is a process that involves a lot of injections and rules but will allow a second version of herself to exist that is ‘the best version.’ After much soul-searching, and with the reality of her career ending and no capacity it seems to think of any purpose beyond hosting a television show, she signs up for it.

The new version of herself is born with a fair amount of horror and is personified by Margaret Qualley as Sue. If you’ve seen Severance, the rivalry between the two parts of the one person will feel familiar to you. The younger version of course is getting all the success that the older version wants, and it is very easy for the two of them to lose sight of the need for coexistence.

What we get is a prolonged battle between two women, of course metaphorically about Elizabeth Sparkle’s self hatred but on screen it is the old trope of two women, the younger generation and the older generation, trying to destroy each other. There is a lot of gore and gross out, a bit of humour, particularly in the cheesier moments or when Moore is owning her fabulousness, and there are a LOT of close-up camera shots of Margaret Qualley’s bum crack and crotch and boobs.

The final version of Elisabeth/Sue is an uncomfortable watch if you’ve seen A Different Man although by this time in the film, we have descended into OTT territory which has its own delights, particularly when director/writer Coralie Fargeat takes a moment to reference other films and popular culture. 

I’m left wondering if a gross out body horror needs any depth or if I’m hanging too much on the promise of feminist. If I think about what the underlying message of the film is, it is definitely that the Hollywood industry is ridiculously misogynist but the stronger message is around the internalised misogyny of Sparkle. We know this exists, but I would hope that a feminist film might show that women have some power and choice and the ability to transcend it.

This screening for me also comes after a long line of MIFF films this year that have been short on kickass women and empowerment and long on women fundamentally damaged and struggling to function. I’m thinking of The Rye Horn, Crossing, Hoard, The Outrun, Malu, All Shall be Well. The only celebratory kick ass moments have been Teaches of Peaches and the final act of The Moogai. Has it been my poor choice of films?

Props to Moore for being willing to be so naked at 61, although she legit has a body of a 35 year old. I felt it hit my heart when she is made up as the crone, an elderly woman, and the audience gasped at the horror. This is my future and to a certain extent my present and this film didn’t make me feel good about it.