Fountain of Youth tales go back centuries, as do stories of Hollywood valuing physical attractiveness and vigor. French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat goes at those themes with a vengeance in THE SUBSTANCE (which she also wrote).

Elizabeth Sparkle is an Oscar winning actress who's had a second career as an Exercise and Fitness guru on a long-running TV show (shades of Jane Fonda). When she hits the big 5-0, her piggish Producer (Dennis Quaid) named Harvey (wink, wink) decides it's time to put her out to pasture. After a medical procedure, a handsome Nurse (Robin Greer) slips her a note with a phone number about a mysterious potion that will change her life – The Substance. Desperate, Elizabeth contacts the clandestine outfit and goes through the process. Shazam! Elizabeth spawns a gorgeous doppelganger dubbed Sue (Margaret Qualley). The catch is that the two halves can't co-exist: Elizabeth must be dormant while Sue is dominant, and vice-versa. They are self-vampires.

Fargeat and her team have made a sharp looking picture. Stanislas Reydellet's production design emphasizes the isolation of the Elizabeth/Sue hybrid. It's all long corridors and large, mostly empty, stark spaces. A huge Picture of Dorian Grey-like portrait of a youthful Elizabeth looms over the main living area. Benjamin's Kracun's cinematography is appropriately cold and sleek, while Raffertie's music booms and bounces (quoting Bernard Herrmann's VERTIGO and Strauss' “Thus Spake Zarathustra”– is not entirely successful). The book-ended prologue and epilogue are spot on.

Fargeat's screenplay has a number of darkly witty moments and certainly hits its satirical targets concerning beauty, fame and vanity. It's a stroke of genius to cast Moore as the lead here as she has certainly been the object of much discussion about aging in Tinseltown, wearing her own plastic surgery as visible reminders of the pressures of maintaining those impossible standards. She's excellent, but it would be remiss to not mention that Qualley more than holds her own. Unfortunately, the movie mostly runs out of steam halfway through. It's few observations aren't so much expanded upon as repeated over and over.

Part of the issue here is the symbiotic Jekyll and Hyde nature is split into two distinct bodies. The mechanics of The Substance inherently work against the psychological possibilities here. The covert entity behind the product keeps insisting that Elizabeth and Sue “are one”, but they rarely share the screen, instead opting for the pair to mutter under their breath about how the other is ruining their individual life. Further, Fargeat further isolates the pair by having so few supporting characters. Neither Elizabeth nor Sue seem to have any friends, relatives or work confidantes. They literally have “no life” (clearly part of the script's plan, but not very edifying nor dramatic). Harvey is a garish cartoon figure as are the other all male authority figures – they make the Mattel execs in BARBIE seem like well rounded gentlemen by comparison. Having even one female person in charge (or as an enabler) would have added some much needed layering to the satire. Fargeat instead opts for base parody. 

By the time Fargeat tries to top Norma Desmond's fall from sanity, the movie has exhausted itself – and, yet lingers on for another 20 minutes or so. The makeup effects (by Olivier Afonso and team) are very well done and there's nothing inherently wrong with extreme body horror but it all overstays its welcome. David Cronenberg has long been looked upon as the master of this sub-genre and for good reason – he understands that pulp should be swift and to the point (there are several specific allusions to his version of THE FLY here). A more recent example is the Cannes Award winning TITANE by Julia Ducourneau. THE SUBSTANCE is a fascinating and entertaining film. It's also hard to dislike a movie too much that depicts snow in Los Angeles!

THE SUBSTANCE is Streaming on Mubi and available as a streaming purchase.