By skyforbes 
Dear God in heaven. There is so much I want to say about this movie WITHOUT telling you too much. I promise you no spoilers.
Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is an aging star. However, she is still working hard in the industry. She already has a Star on the Walk of Fame. Elizabeth hosts a dated aerobics show. For all you kids out there, aerobics is like the Zumba class back in your parent’s time. But the station finally decided she was too old. They need someone new, younger, and hotter. The station is headed by a dirty and sexist man named Harvey
(Dennis Quaid). Elizabeth came across this experimental new drug called, say it with me, The Substance. It’s a green liquid inside a small bottle that you have to inject yourself. The Substance will create a “copy” of you to be in the world. It is a younger, hotter, and more perfect version of you. Here’s the catch. You, the real you, can live your life for 7 days. The hot you can live for 7 days. You have to follow it strictly and respect the balance. Or else, bad things would happen. And of course, nothing bad happened in the movie. Just kidding.
The first scene of the movie is excellent. I’m not gonna spoil it. The visual language, color, and cinematography from the beginning tell you a lot about the mood and energy of the film. It has a colorful minimalism that I love. The movie gets crazier and crazier as it progresses. I promise you. But all the build-up and foreshadowing make sense. This is a 2 hour and 20 minute movie. I did not expect that. When I found out this was a body horror, I was expecting 90 minutes. But they had the balls to make it almost 2 and a half hours, but it did not feel long. The movie has an excellent pace and it’s mother freakin’ RIVETING.
It keeps progressing and keeps getting more bold and bizarre as time passes. The movie went there and beyond. It got crazier. Make sure you LISTEN when you watch this. The sound design is insane. It’s a weird squishy sound like you are massaging a raw turkey dipped in a bucket of gravy.
Elizabeth has an apartment. It’s large and it looks like a mansion. But ultimately, the apartment DOES NOT MAKE SENSE. That’s all I can say without spoiling.
The sad reality of this movie is it’s an allegory/metaphor for how women get discarded in this industry once they reach a certain age. If you want to be the star or the main character, it’s not realistic to expect that as you age. You can be a character actor for a long time. There will always be roles to become the mom or dad of Zendaya or Glen Powell in a movie. But if you expect sexual viability from the audience, there is an age cut-off for that. I know people have kinks for everything, but that’s a different story for a different time.
The performances of everyone is excellent. It’s scary, depressing, anxiety-inducing, and even funny at times. I believe they stretched the acting ability of Margaret Qualley. Demi Moore, I have so much respect for her after seeing this movie, she really went there. She deserves credit just by accepting this role. Both Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley were amazing. They had to portray different elements of the same woman. It’s like Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde are played by different actors but they have to be cohesive. Dennis Quaid plays a comic villain caricature of a media executive who is probably not that far from many sexist and predatory executives out there.
The ending is CRAZY and TOO MUCH for me, but that’s why I love it. It made me uncomfortable. It made me hold my chest. It made me pause. But maybe that’s what great horror movies do. The makeup, special effects, and prosthetics get CRAZY. It’s not a CGI fest like many horror movies today. If you have a problem with blood and guts in movies, this is not for you.
There’s an emotional truth in this movie about not feeling beautiful or confident about how you look. Every woman could relate to that, and even some men too. That’s not just an entertainment industry thing. It also tackles our fears about getting old and disease. It also tackles addiction and “substance abuse.”
- Jays Ratings — 92%
- Rotten Tomatoes — 89%
- IMDB — 7.4 of 10
- Letterboxd — 3.8 of 5
- Metacritic — 78
- Roger Ebert — 3.5 of 4
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