Capsule Reviews - 'The Substance,' 'Megalopolis'

by Philip Price

The Substance

Photo: Mubi

The hallway is only full after a lifetime of achievements. And 50 is generous. Demi Moore is 61.
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I really dug how heightened everything was in “The Substance” - the editing and music especially - to emphasize how heightened the images we see of people on billboards, TV and especially in magazines are. These already pretty people made beautiful by teams of experts who are then put in flattering clothes and photographed at the most complimentary of angles while much of what these images do is compel the subjects as well as those who see and admire them to maintain their own appearance to the best of their ability - if not more.

The commentary on remaining youthful, the pigheadedness of men in Hollywood and how each time we do something to alter our appearance in unnaturalistic ways, we become more and more of a shell of who we once were is all plain text, but “The Substance” also has plenty to say about addiction, the pharmaceutical industry, as well as the general absurdity of the preciousness we surround the human form with if one cares to dissect it further.

Writer/director Coralie Fargeat makes these rather obvious observations seemingly more ...ahem... substantive by utilizing the presence of Moore and the audience's relationship with her outside of the film to accelerate the understanding of who Elisabeth Sparkle is and what she means to the culture. Moore's transformation over the course of the film, the dynamic she develops with Margaret Qualley's Sue, and how she quickly realizes her "true self" is who benefited least from trying to please everyone else is all executed with such over-the-top body horror hilariously excessive imagery of women's bodies and an aesthetic that is calculated and curated as meticulously as its characters make the style of expression as key as the content itself. One can't help but be fascinated at every turn, not simply by what the film is saying or how it's saying it but also by how unabashedly bold it is in making such assertions. It may go on for a bit too long in the third act, but deliberate exploitation is the name of the game, and Fargeat knows how to play it well.

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Megalopolis

Photo: Lionsgate

Is it weird I no longer believe a single individual can save the world?
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Adam Driver is a good actor. He does a great David Dastmalchian impression here.

For Driver to go from a bit supporting part in a Coen Brothers movie 11 years ago to fronting Francis Ford Coppola's most significant bid in decades while working with Scorsese, Jarmusch, Baumbach, Spike, Soderbergh, Gilliam, Ridley and Mann in between is ... something ... and will absolutely look good for his cumulative legacy down the road, but my guy flips his cape more in this movie than he did as Kylo Ren.

I mean, bravo for large-scale ambitious storytelling, but upon first impression (and that part is key) “Megalopolis” feels like a collection of dialogue that FFC has kept a log of over the years that he believed - to varying degrees of truth - might be groundbreaking to the masses less privileged than he.

Some examples:

"When does an empire begin to die?"

"We've always got time...even if I don't understand it."

"Our life is what our thoughts make it."

And yet it's as if he never bothered much with finding a throughline of cohesion within these thoughts that he could transpose in a filmmaking fashion that might actually enlighten. What's most fascinating about this line of thinking - even if it's only true on the most granular of levels - is that FFC is 85 years old, has made some of the most celebrated films in history, and yet the commentary he provides here is more a series of acknowledgments about how screwed we are and that things need to change more so than it is statements on why, after watching the world actually change, evolve and adapt for nearly a century, things continue to falter and each new incarnation of generations continue to fail. Are we doomed to constantly repeat ourselves because everyone must learn from their own mistakes, or are the incremental steps forward every 50 years or so actually due to the fact we learn something from the past?

I stopped believing a long time ago that movies and entertainment could actually enact change in the greater scope of the world, but that genuinely seems to be FFC's goal here. Yet he offers no contributions to the conversation — only ostentatiously rendered observations that compare the fall of Rome to that of our current civilization ... as well as giving Shia LaBeouf and Aubrey Plaza the opportunity to fully camp up the place.

"I don't mind the lightning, but the thunder scares the shit outta me."

I wish, Mr. Hoffman. I felt nothing while watching this.