The Substance: When Neon Green Meets Body Horror

There's this bathroom.

The thing about The Substance is that you'll end up thinking about the bathroom whether you want to or not, this sterile white cube where Demi Moore becomes something else entirely, where the green of that injection liquid has more character development than half the script. Look, I get what Coralie Fargeat is going for. She's screaming about beauty standards and aging, practically beating us with the message while Benjamin Kračun's camera refuses to flinch from a single pore, a single wrinkle, a single grotesque transformation that happens in that white prison of a bathroom.

Moore takes on the role of Elisabeth Sparkle who lost her aerobics show job after turning fifty. Dennis Quaid's Harvey (subtle) tells her "Pretty girls should always smile!" and we're off to the races. Elisabeth shoots up this glowing green substance and births Sue out of her spine. Margaret Qualley shows herself as a perfect young product which appeals to the market. Seven days each. Balance. "You. Are. The instructions repeatedly state "One."Which, fine.

The color work here commits so hard to its aesthetic that it wraps back around to brilliance. The neon green color creates a radioactive effect when it meets the clinical whites and candy pinks of the scene. The effect is genuinely beautiful. It works. The costumes designed by Emmanuelle Youchnovski reveal all the necessary information through Elisabeth's dull earth-toned outfits which fade into nothingness while Sue shines with metallic fabrics that reflect every beam of light. The leotards contain more storytelling value than all the spoken words in the entire dialogue.

Actually, that's unfair. The film reaches its desired effects by using its visual elements.

But here's what sits weird. The film maintains its focus on Qualley's buttocks to study how women cause themselves injury through their pursuit of looking young. The camera uses its male perspective to create an adoring view of flawless physical forms which it supposedly wants to challenge. Fargeat thinks she's being clever but she's just doing the thing while winking at us that she knows she's doing the thing. Two hours and twenty minutes of this.

Can we talk about the third act for a second? Everything devolves into body horror chaos that feels imported from a different movie. The restraint vanishes. Suddenly we're in full Cronenberg territory but without his precision, just gore for gore's sake. The final creature effects?Sure, technically impressive. The prosthetics team of Pierre-Olivier Persin dedicated numerous extra hours to their work. The movie gives up its built-in narrative structure to focus on creating spectacular moments.

Moore achieves her most powerful acting moment through her pre-date preparation when she uses too much makeup to transform her face before she completely destroys her appearance multiple times. The spiral pattern appears to be an actual phenomenon. "You're the only part of me I don't hate," she tells Sue's comatose form, and suddenly the whole film clicks for about thirty seconds before dissolving back into its own excess.

The green liquid continues to occupy my thoughts. How it glows against the white tiles. The production design elements of a film can disclose authentic details which exceed the information found in the written dialogue.