On the tyranny of youth and beauty

 

   I haven't left a horror film with a grin on my face in a long time. That was the case with The Substance, a freshly minted chunk of body horror that ends with so much unrestrained wildness, I found it impossible not to smile, even if I winced a bit. 

  Director Coralie Fargeat delivers a boldly stylish movie that doesn't flinch when it comes to satirizing female obsession with looks and aging.

   Demi Moore plays a nationally known celebrity, the smiling host of a TV aerobics show. But wait. A career based on a streamlined body has an expiration date. So it's no surprise when an aging Elisabeth learns that she's been fired by her callous boss, Dennis Quaid in a broad, clownish performance as Harvey, an unashamed misogynist with boorish table manners.

     Watching Harvey gobble shrimp is enough to put off your popcorn.

    An early-picture auto accident lands Elisabeth in the hospital, where she's approached by a young man who tells her that she's a candidate for a new treatment. All she has to do is call a number she's been given. After a bit of waffling, she phones.

    The call sets up the movie's major twist. Sparkle learns about The Substance, a fluid she'll inject into her body to produce a younger, better version of herself. This new self,  which emerges from an agonizing split along Elisabeth's spine, is named Sue. She's played by a youthful, vibrant Margaret Qualley. 

    Sue, of course, takes over Sparkle's show, becoming the aggressively exuberant star of Pump It Up With Sue.

     Elisabeth's rebirth comes with rules. Sue only can function in the world for a week at a time before Elisabeth returns. They’re supposed to alternate weeks. 

    Both are constantly reminded that, despite appearances, they're the same person. One can't escape the other.

      Absurd? Of course, but Elisabeth's bitterness eventually clashes with Sue's ambition, and ... well ... it doesn't much matter what happens next. 

      What matters is the slickly realized environment Fargeat creates; she invents an encompassing reality, establishes its rules, and flows her story through a cascade of exaggerated close-ups, highly stylized interiors, and, yes, blood and gore.

      She also alludes to earlier masters such as David Cronenberg and Stanley Kubrick. Film references aside, The Substance feels freshly imagined as an in-your-face exploration of the perils of vanity and the society that seems to demand it.

      You'll find ample helpings of nudity from Moore, who's now 61, and Qualley, who's 29. The nudity is bold but free of erotic cliches. When the camera zooms in on Sue's butt (during her show), it feels as if we're looking at curves that have been cast in polished plastic. 

      We know the Substance code will be violated. When  that happens, Elisabeth begins to age in punishing ways, becoming a grotesque crone in bits and pieces. 

     As for nudity, Moore seems to be saying that her body belongs to her and she'll show as much of it as she wants. Rather than pandering to it, her nudity challenges the male gaze.

      Elisabeth and Sue square off, but Fargeat, whose movie won best screenplay at last May's Cannes Film Festival, has the final word with a Grand Guignol of a finale that refuses to allow either character to wriggle off the hook.

      A bizarre riff on the price of pursuing impossible goals, The Substance barges its way through a whirl of imaginative images, but it only can go so far: It's not easy to make a "deep" film about a movie that’s preoccupied with surfaces.

       Still, Fargeat gives her film a shockingly vivid presence, and her two actresses turn their performances into boldly assertive statements about the tyranny of youth, beauty, and the unappeased hunger for both. 

        

   

A new entry into the revenge genre

A French director fills the screen with blood and tension.

First-time French director Coralie Fargeat has delivered one hell of a calling card, attacking the screen with Revenge, a debut movie that leaves a bloody, indelible impression. Some will see Fargeat's movie as a feminist act of turning the tables, a movie about a woman whose fight for survival pits her against three men, all of whom deserve whatever punishment they get.

But however you choose to view Revenge, it will be difficult to argue against the movie's kick-in-the-gut power.

Movies such as Revenge don't so much tell stories as they find the ingenuity required to keep the action heated, raw and, above all, moving.

A bare-bones plot kicks off when the super-hot Jen (Matilda Lutz) is raped by a hunting buddy (Vincent Colombe) of a man (Kevin Janssens) with whom she's having an extra-marital affair. Another thuggish hunter (Guillaume Bouchede) ignores the whole thing. Instead of aiding Jen, he turns up the volume on the TV.

None of this was supposed to happen. Janssen's Richard hoped to dispense with his boy-toy before his hunting companions turned up at his isolated, aggressively modern desert home. When they arrive a day early, the two men disrupt the sexual interlude that the square-jawed Richard hoped to conclude before setting out to find four-legged prey.

Initially, Jen seems as bubble-headed as she is beautiful, strutting about in a bikini and showing no self-consciousness about being ogled.

Don't be fooled. Fargeat has more in mind than pandering to male fantasies -- at least not those involving sex.

Instead, she serves up a stylishly slick helping of tension, violence, and action in a movie that's not (I repeat "not") for the squeamish.

I don't want to say too much about what happens in the parched expanses of the desert but I'll warn you that there are images that will tempt you to look away from the screen. In one such, Fargeat uses an excruciating close-up to show a man digging into an open wound to remove shards of glass from his foot.

I mention this by way of warning you that there's enough plasma spilled in Revenge to stock a blood bank.

Fargeat offers just enough characterization to create a bit of depth. Initially, Jen seems like a bimbo who knowingly has involved herself with a married man. Fargeat even slips in a Lolita-like shot of Jen with a lollipop.

Richard seems the perfect male mix of success and hypocrisy, a philanderer who calls his wife from his desert retreat, feigning marital loyalty and familial concern. Colombe's Stan -- the leering rapist who attacks Jen when Richard leaves the house for a couple of hours -- eventually has second thoughts about his brutality. Only Bouchede's character seems too dim-witted to care about what's happening.

Revenge is best seen without much advance knowledge about what transpires. I won't say too much about Jen's transformation into a warrior, although I will tell you that it begins with a whopping shock.

Shot in Morocco, Revenge makes great use of desert settings and cinematographer Robrecht Heyvaert wields his camera with remarkable deftness.

Whipsmart when it comes to technique and visual wit, Fargeat has made a movie that's tense, lurid and exciting. Not everyone has a taste for this kind of movie, but if you do, Revenge definitely should satisfy.