We probably don’t tire of the hype so much as the letdown. Starting as a gentle whisper that builds to an assailing roar, it’s standard operating procedure to get the buzz going months in advance on an upcoming movie, sorting the specific brand of hoopla into neatly organized subsets. The most epic flick in years is just around the corner, the scariest thing you’ve ever seen is only two weeks away, the funniest comedy of the decade has finally arrived. Such lofty propositions are mostly a fool’s errand, none more so than the amorphous promise that you’re about to witness something that is, for lack of a more elegant description, completely batshit. After all, bonkers is in the eye of the beholder, and one viewer’s version of gonzo might be standard matinee fare for those more inclined to dig a little for their rejuvenative dose of mania. As 2024’s torchbearer of extremity and madness, The Substance hasn’t been done any favors by its marketing, which would have you believe in pustulous flying toasters and three-eyed toads falling from the sky. What a relief to discover that writer/director Coralie Fargeat’s sophomore outing is less concerned with scandalizing an audience on their terms than staying true to itself, obviating the pressure to perform from the outset. Turns out there’s nothing crazier than true clarity of cock-eyed vision.     

David Cronenberg by way of All About Eve and Being John Malkovich, The Substance follows Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), a thinly veiled Jane Fonda stand-in who matches her inspiration in critical acclaim, cultural adoration, and a late career pivot to televised aerobics. Despite all her accolades, Hollywood’s sinister hourglass runs out of sand in the movie’s opening passages, sending the starlet into a tailspin that only the titular elixir can quell. Pledging revitalization and virality beyond compare, Elisabeth only experiences brief reservations before injecting the neon green miracle drug into her arm, bringing to life a younger, more vivacious alter-ego (Margaret Qualley) in the process. The two of them are one, claims a monotone, disembodied voice across a series of hushed, harried phone calls. What’s not to trust? 

If the above description seems light on details as to how exactly Qualley enters this mortal frey, it’s because The Substance’s potent brand of lunacy is best experienced without forewarning, though it’s not like Fargeat’s screenplay feels overly compelled to explain itself. Set in an oppressively bright Los Angeles, the movie delights in obscuring its era with incongruous markers of time jubilantly scattered about. As if the monocultural importance of a morning exercise show isn’t confounding enough, characters also pour over classified ads, rely on P.O. boxes, and allude to the network’s all important New Year’s Eve variety show with hushed reverence. It’s enough to make you believe you’re watching a period piece until Moore starts texting on an iphone, but don’t worry, she never accesses the internet. Using time as a slippery slope will prove maddening to those who prefer their i’s dotted and t’s crossed, but fortifies the flick’s dreamy worldview, one where logic and sense are constantly forced to take a backseat to Fargeat’s whirling dervish of a narrative. 

It’s also quite funny, and though the gross-out factor and social commentary will surely rule the discourse around The Substance, they shouldn’t overshadow the pervasive humor throughout, especially when they’re working in tandem. The boorish behavior of the movie’s male players effectively skewers the omnipresent misogyny fueling every story beat, but that doesn’t mean you’re not supposed to laugh when Denis Quaid inhales five pounds of shrimp, or when his group of nameless, balding sycophants go full-on seven dwarves in the background of every scene. Even the more phantasmagoric elements are often knee-slappers, none more so than the horrific, plasma splattering centerpiece sequence, which mutates from shock to parody by virtue of a staunch refusal to call it quits. 

The all-encompassing muchness here is something to behold, but it doesn’t afford the actors much room to breathe, playing both lasciviousness and inner turmoil through close-ups that seem to laminate their performances in real time. Moore is a convincing woman on either side of a nervous breakdown, with Qualley and Quaid embodying enticement and revulsion with aplomb, but the movie is less interested in the talent of its thespians than their bravery for RSVPing in the first place. The constant nudity of its female leads, especially from the 61-year-old Moore, is likely to be praised and chastised in equal measure, but pour one out for Quaid, who’s downright disgusting in ways that most former A-listers would consider entirely unpalatable. For all their stripping, groaning, sweating and screaming, Fargeat’s cast exists in subservience to their director’s vision, a distinction that only becomes troubling after the movie rumbles right on past the two hour mark.

141 minutes is quite the ask for a movie like this, and while The Substance could never be accused of losing its audience, the bloated runtime allows the viewer to catch on to the film’s nagging imperfections. Given the beauty standard subject matter, there’s a chance this is actually the point, though a meta-inclined reading doesn’t provide Moore or Qualley with any more shading, each inhabiting cyphers rather than characters. The rooms and hallways in which they tussle and squirm lose the power of their leering symmetry when overfamiliarity prompts questions of budgetary constraints, and the flick’s considerable plot holes, which could have been the inconsequential minutiae of nightmares, can’t help but linger when we have so much time to consider them. For a film that actively courts Franz Kafka comparisons and builds a Cask of Amontillado all its own, it’s strange that those short story icons’ lessons about the power of brevity are never heeded. 

Complaining about too much of a good thing is even more wrong-headed than having faith in the hyperbole that studio executives use to put butts in seats, but such is the dilemma presented by an extremely good movie that’s so damn close to transcendence. The runtime here probably pushes it past Criterion consecration toward the realm of midnight screening mainstay, but either way, The Substance isn’t going anywhere. That’s saying a lot for a film with zero characters, roughly three sets, and about five great ideas that it revisits ad nauseam, but such is Fargeat’s power behind a camera. Like a freight train plowing through all manner of common sense and decent taste, she turns her movie rock concert, complete with scintillating guitar solos and an encore that threatens to meet the sunrise. The issues and hangups that dot the margins of The Substance will likely fade from memory with time. The jolting sounds and unthinkable sights will not.