The Guardian
Well, the movie is ridiculous and a little redundant towards the end, but Moore relishes the postmodern horror of his situation.
In its vulgarity – and, yes, its rejection of serious substance – The Substance really should be released on VHS cassettes and watched at home in homage to the great era of home entertainment and the masterpieces of weirdness and grossness of the video clubs.
It reminded me of Looker, Michael Crichton’s sloppy ’80s pulp chiller, with Albert Finney as a sinister plastic surgeon. Fargeat gives some surprises.
The Telegraph
If that sci-fi premise sounds crazy, you haven’t heard the half of it. The Substance is a fantastic satirical horror thriller, at once hilarious, moving and astonishingly grotesque.
It’s exactly the jolt of extravagantly stylized genre energy that the Cannes Film Festival needed at this halfway point, and Moore, in a powerful return, grabs the role like her life depends on it.
BBC Culture
Fargeat’s twisted tale is a lot of fun, especially if you like hearing snaps, creaks and crunches as gruesome things are done to human flesh. (Anyone with a fear of needles should avoid The Substance at all costs.)
The film also offers attention-grabbing roles for its three stars. In his best big-screen role in decades, Moore isn’t afraid to parody his public image, Qualley shows a wicked sense of humor as Barbie’s evil twin, and Quaid gleefully overdoes it as an obnoxious businessman in suits. striking.
hollywood reporter
A bloody fantasy that’s a twisted cross between the classic films Sunset Blvd. and Freaks, it’s one of the most outlandish Cannes competition films since Titane and, with the right mix of juries, could follow that film to a major award at a festival, if not for the film, perhaps for Moore.
Independent cable
The Substance is a non-stop, til-you-gag epic, that builds and builds and builds until it scars every viewer with a deep-seated physiological aversion to the idea that we can ever hope to escape ourselves.
Fargaet’s film ramps up with the kind of ultra-confident audacity that makes you laugh out loud at images that would otherwise make you scream, and it simply refuses to end until even Harvey himself is disgusted by how society pressures women. to shape their bodies.
And so, like any fairy tale worthy of its unforgettable and terrifying special effects, ‘The Substance’ concludes with a clear moral that one wants to believe in: there is more beauty in freedom than freedom in beauty. And it’s absolutely wonderful to see Elisabeth Sparkle and Demi Moore help each other escape the light of that truth.
Variety
Demi Moore’s performance is nothing short of fearless. She plays, in some very abstract ways, a version of herself (once a star at the center of the universe, now old enough to be seen by sexist Hollywood as overtaken), and her performance is riddled with anger, terror, despair, and revenge.
There is a lot of full nudity in ‘The Substance’, to the point that the film flirts with constructing a male gaze as the basis of its aesthetic. However, he does so only to pull the rug out from under us for voyeurism. Margaret Qualley makes Sue distinctly magnetic in her confidence, and the fact that Sue knows how to present herself as an “object” is part of the film’s satirical design. She follows the rules and “gives the people what they want.”
I think it’s clear that Qualley will be a major star, and here’s why. She takes this stylized role and gives it a touch of mystery. Because ‘The Substance’ is ultimately a story of dueling egos, with Elisabeth’s real self and her enhanced self facing each other in a war for dominance.