Demi Moore’s new critically acclaimed film “The Substance”

“Elisabeth Sparkle, renowned for an aerobics show, faces a devastating blow on her 50th birthday as her boss fires her. Amid her distress, a laboratory offers her a substance which promises to transform her into an enhanced version of herself.”

David Ehrlich of IndieWire graded the film an A, calling it "an epic, audacious body horror masterpiece... an instant classic. The most sickly entertaining theatrical experience of the year".

Nicholas Barber of the BBC awarded the film four stars out of five, while singling out Moore's performance: "Ripping into her best big-screen role in decades, Demi Moore is fearless in parodying her public image."

Phil de Semlyen's five star review in Time Out says it is "Moore who glues it all together, going full Isabelle Adjani-in-Possession in a vanity-free performance full of bruised ego, dawning horror and vulnerability".

Owen Gleiberman in Variety praised the film's director: "Coralie Fargeat works with the flair of a grindhouse Kubrick in a weirdly fun, cathartically grotesque fusion of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Showgirls."

Radhika Seth in Vogue called it "audacious piece of filmmaking... the most exciting release to have debuted on the Croisette so far" and that it was her "current pick to win the Palme d'Or".

Damon Wise in Deadline said it is "a riotous, dreamlike horror-thriller that ends in a delirious symphony of blood, guts and otherwise undefinable viscera".

Peter Bradshaw's 4-star review in The Guardian called it "a cheerfully silly and outrageously indulgent piece of gonzo body-horror comedy".

Get it, Mubi!

I've heard great things about it as well.

Universal Pictures was originally the distributor. Somehow MUBI got their hands on it.

[quote]Elisabeth Sparkle, renowned for an aerobics show, faces a devastating blow on her 50th birthday

Demi Moore, 50 ??

Hmm, seems apt as she's been rebuilt many times in search of a perfect her.

Variety

Ooooh, this looks good!

Variety review even invokes our beloved “Showgirls”!

The trailer has only one shot of Demi and she looks as grim as 1950s Joan Crawford.

Saw it tonight. Hard for me to believe the raves this has gotten, both here and elsewhere. It's boringly over-the-top -- there's never much doubt about where this is going to go, and it's got absolutely nothing new to say about body image, misogyny, etc., etc. Demi Moore is well cast, to be sure, but it's hardly the revelatory turn so many seem to see.

"Visionary"? How so? It's a BLACK MIRROR episode bloated to nearly 2 and a half hours, with uninteresting allusions to everything from THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY to CARRIE. And God knows it's entirely without internal logic.

R10 I I see this film and it isn’t like your review we gon be beefing 😂.

Yeah, now I want to see it because I wonder if I’ll agree with you r10.

R10 is mostly right, though the film is frustrating because for its first few acts it’s executed well enough that one is engrossed. There’s just no excuse for how the wheels come off of this thing at the very end, no matter how many classic horror movies it manages to reference.