166. Best Picture Showcase '25: THE SUBSTANCE dir. Coralie Fargeat

Continuing the Best Picture Showcase, in which I cover this year's Oscars nominees for Best Picture, the road takes us to a tour-de-force of an original, pulse-pounding, "sickly entertaining" movie, Coralie Fargeat's THE SUBSTANCE.This is an audacious, whip-smart body horror movie that's bound to break your heart as much as it'll force you to recoil in disgust...and maybe even make you laugh along the way?Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is an aging actress who, after being dropped by her network, doesn't know how to function without the kind of shallow, yet plentiful adoration show business provides. What remains are the painful reminders of her age, her beauty, her desirability, none of which are bolstered by her self-esteem. What is it that people say: We are our own worst critics?An opportunity presents itself in the form of The Substance, an injectable drug that promises the user the ability to live in a new body, derived by the user's own DNA. Spend 7 days in the new and improved body, switch back to the old body for 7 days.Elisabeth jumps at the chance, and after a revolting transformation sequence, out emerges the effervescent Sue (Margaret Qualley). As long as the balance is respected and all the rules followed, everything will work out fine. But if anyone ever followed the rules in these movies, we wouldn't have a movie, then would we?---Follow The Movies on ⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠& ⁠⁠Letterboxd⁠⁠Financially support the podcast via the ⁠⁠tip jar!