In Review: ‘The Substance’ and ‘Transformers One’

Something for the old and the young.

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The Substance is a primal scream of anger and frustration about the treatment of women in the entertainment industry and though effective it is, like most screams, not entirely coherent or consistent.

You’ll get a sense for the film’s mood in the opening moments, as we see the unveiling of a Hollywood star for one Elisabeth Sparkle. In a montage we see the bright lights of flashbulbs popping as this starlet accepts her spot in the firmament of fame—only to watch as her star gets trampled on, fashion changes of the pedestrians signaling the passage of time, cracks appearing as the star is worn down by time and weather and heavy use but mostly time, always time. Time is undefeated in Hollywood, and Sparkle (Demi Moore) is about to see why.

An Oscar-winning actress who appears to have gotten out of the acting game and now makes her living as the host of a Jane Fonda-style workout show, Sparkle overhears network honcho Harvey (Dennis Quaid) say that she’s too old to keep doing the show. Moments later, at lunch, he more or less tells her this to her face, hisface distorted by a fisheye lens that brings him displeasingly near our own, given that he’s chomping on shrimp that he’s ripping apart by hand. The foley work here, and throughout The Substance, is exaggerated, assaulting our auditory senses with mastication and, later, some needlework.

Elisabeth wants to be a younger, better version of herself. Enter the “Substance,” a mysterious self-help program that involves injecting oneself with a neon liquid, giving birth to a younger doppelgänger, and splitting time between the two lives. After Sue (Margaret Qualley) erupts from Elisabeth’s back, she takes over the home workout beat, pornifies it with exaggerated sexiness and extra-revealing lycra, and becomes the hot new thing at the network.

The Substance is not particularly subtle in its messaging: Hollywood has a predilection for chewing people up and spitting them out; aging in an industry that demands youthful vitality to move product is horrifying and dehumanizing; even Harvey’s name calls to mind another famously disgusting movie monster. And yet writer-director Coralie Fargeat never shies away from a core truth of filmmaking, namely that the camera loves beauty and audiences are hungry with desire. Her camera lingers over Qualley’s body in a way that would be condemned as pandering to the male gaze were this a film directed by, say, Nicolas Winding Refn. And while the film’s escalating weirdness eventually spirals out of control in the final sequence—it’s not quite camp; it’s more like John Waters- or Lloyd Kaufman-style trash—I was certainly never bored during the 140-minute runtime.

“Body horror” is a word that’s been tossed around a lot in connection with The Substance, and it is certainly not for the faint of heart. The relationship between Sue and Elisabeth is almost vampiric, Sue’s youthful vitality coming at the expense of Elisabeth’s increasing decrepitude. But it’s also a movie about addiction—to fame, to the pursuit for ageless beauty—which, combined with the aforementioned exaggerated foley work, distorted camera lenses, and hip-hop montages will inevitably remind many viewers of Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream. (The needle-averse will likely look away more than once.)

Indeed, one of the fascinating things about The Substance is that Elisabeth, who has presumably earned enough to be able to comfortably retire after decades in the spotlight, continually refuses opportunities to step aside gracefully, paralyzed as she is by her addiction to the spotlight, her crippling insecurity with her natural age. She cannot stomach being told by Harvey that she is too old to be a sex symbol, even though her time has passed. She cannot muster the courage to go on a date with a schlubby guy her own age, even though he’s ecstatic at the thought of it and finds her beautiful still. And she cannot give up the thrill of Sue’s life, even though it becomes apparent that her double’s inability to maintain the balance of their shared life will mean her own death. Interestingly, almost every man in the movie gives her a way out except for the beauty-obsessed nurse who introduces her to the titular treatment program; his vanity and the concurrent societal refusal more broadly to accept the natural rhythms of life is the film’s great villain.

I’ll be curious to see if The Substance picks up any awards-season buzz for Moore and Qualley, both of whom absolutely deserve plaudits for their work here. They are the sort of roles that are often described as “brave” (which is to say, they involve copious amounts of nudity), but it really is the sort of movie that only works with a star like Moore in the lead role, one whose radiant beauty was her entrée into the world of acting and who has been seen a bit less frequently in lead roles in recent years. That sort of self-examination and the scrutiny it invites is likely uncomfortable, at the least.

Quaid, most recently seen in theaters as Ronald Reagan, also deserves a special mention for his work as the disgusting pig Harvey—speaking of bravery, it takes a big actor to let a cameraman jam a lens in his face while he mashes food between his teeth—as does costume designer Emmanuelle Youchnovski, who finds the most garish suits imaginable to signify Harvey’s crassness. Indeed, Youchnovski should take a bow for her designs throughout: This is very much a movie where clothing signifies status and stature; from the ’80s-era leggings and poofy dresses in Elisabeth’s wardrobe to Sue’s more salacious workout gear and leather catsuits, clothes are an important visual signifier of status in the world of The Substance.

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On this week’s episode of Across the Movie Aisle, we reviewed Rebel Ridge, and on today’s bonus episode we talked about thrillers with a conscience. I hope you give them both a listen if only to hear Alyssa Rosenberg learn what it sounds like when Peter and I are (politically) pandered to by the movies for nearly the first time. That bonus episode is for members only, so if you haven’t signed up yet, maybe do so now? You won’t regret it! Plus it’s free for a month!

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I realized Transformers One has a fairly significant structural problem when, about an hour into the 100-or-so-minute runtime, my 5-year-old son leaned over in his theater chair and asked, in not-quite-a-whisper, “When are they gonna turn into vehicles?”

Because in this prequel—which details the friendship and falling out of Optimus Prime (Chris Hemsworth) and Megatron (Brian Tyree Henry) back when they were known, respectively, as the mining robots Orion Pax and D-16—some Transformers are born without “transformation cogs,” the little bit inside them that allows them to change from walking-talking robots. (Or, at least, that’s what we’re led to believe. Spoiler: shenanigans are afoot.) It isn’t until Orion Pax and D-16, along with their friends, Elita-1 (Scarlett Johannsson) and B-127/Bumblebee (Keegan-Michael Key), are given some transformation cogs from deceased Transformers that they can, as my son implored, turn into vehicles.

And look, I know: “animation is for adults”; writers Eric Pearson, Andrew Barrer, and Gabriel Ferrari are telling a story about friendship and betrayal; some of the other characters do turn into vehicles, etc. But this is a kids’ movie for kids and if you tell kids they’re going to a Transformers movie the kids are going to be vaguely annoyed if the Transformers don’t do any transforming for most of the runtime. They’re not here for backstory (and this movie has endless oceans of backstory) and they probably don’t care that much about the friendship/falling out of Optimus Prime and Megatron (though this idea, which seems transparently silly, is handled with much more skill and grace than I expected and the writers absolutely deserve credit for nailing it).

They just want to see robots turn into vehicles. It is a Transformers film, after all.