The Substance

Where did this script come from? How did this movie get made? How the HELL did this grotesque fever-dream get a Best Picture nomination? Everyone involved seems to be fully committed and in-on-the-gag. And it’s just about the riskiest big-swing you could make in Hollywood. You can’t help but admire the huge gamble this is by Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, et al. Ultimately, the parable of the beauty myth devolves into full-blown early Peter Jackson/David Cronenberg, Grand Guignol perversion and the point starts to get lost. In the final third, when it really becomes ridiculous and we’ve learned all we can, we start to wish they would just wrap things up. It gets silly and gross. But man, oh man, did they light a fuse and say something to the world. “A” for effort. Well-played, guys.