The Substance
Short description
The Substance follows Elisabeth Sparkle, a Hollywood star whose fame has faded. She now hosts a television fitness programme, but when the show is set to be relaunched with a younger presenter, she turns in desperation to an unlicensed drug offered by a mysterious laboratory. The substance, which works through cell division, is said to create a younger, more beautiful and more perfect version of the user. Elisabeth injects it and a second self, Sue, comes into being. The two are meant to share their existence, alternating one week each, but Sue's success in show business soon makes the arrangement precarious.
Coralie Fargeat wrote, directed and produced the film, her second feature after Revenge (2017). Demi Moore plays Elisabeth, Margaret Qualley plays Sue, and Dennis Quaid appears as Harvey. The film runs 141 minutes and is a drama with horror, science fiction and thriller elements, made in the United Kingdom, the United States and France.
Released in September 2024, the film was produced for about 18 million USD and took roughly 77 million USD worldwide, a strong return on its budget. Audiences rate it 7.2/10 on IMDb from around 411,000 votes and 7.1/10 on TMDB from some 6,487 votes. A critics' rating of 8.1/10 from 377 reviews puts it notably higher than those audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- At the 33rd minute, Sue takes a food package for Elizabeth from the locker. However, a couple of seconds before that, it is visible that the package is already lying on the floor.
- Demi Moore and director and screenwriter Coralie Fargeau once met in Paris, and as a result of this meeting, Fargeau invited Moore to play Elizabeth.
- According to Demi Moore, the prosthetic makeup required 6 to 9 hours to apply and only lasted for a limited time.
- One of the main characters, played by Margaret Qualley, wears star-shaped earrings, just like the character from the director Coralie Fargeat's debut film "Revenge".
- Ray Liotta was cast as Harvey in February 2022. However, he passed away before filming began, and the role went to Dennis Quaid.
- Margaret Qualley admitted in an interview that the bare breasts in the film were not her own, but skillfully made prosthetics.
- At the 50th minute, when Sue is carrying Elizabeth’s body, it is visible that the right eye in Elizabeth’s portrait is not cracked. When the shot changes to a close-up, the glass is seen to be broken. At the 52nd minute, when Sue is carrying the portrait, the glass is again visible as being intact.
- According to Coralie Fargeat, the main source of inspiration for the film was Oscar Wilde's novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray".
- In several interviews, Demi Moore said that when reading the script, she remembered reading the script for "Ghost" and also thought that the film was facing either complete failure or enormous success.
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