THE SUBSTANCE (MUBI – Sept. 20): It’s quite a feat to take the body horror crown at a film festival that also features a contribution from David Cronenberg, but Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance uses its revolting imagery in a funnier, crazier, and more focused manner than Cronenberg’s The Shrouds. The setting is an only slightly satiric Los Angeles, where longtime exercise-show host Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore, all-in for Fargeat’s gonzo ride) is losing her job, fired by studio boss Harvey (a garish Dennis Quaid) for the crime of passing the age of 50. Angry and depressed, she receives an offer to take part in a mysterious medical procedure. If she takes the proffered drugs and follows the instructions to the letter, she will split into two beings with one consciousness, and the new one will be young and gorgeous. Elisabeth names this persona Sue (played by Margaret Qualley), and as Sue she wows Harvey and wins Elisabeth’s old job. There is, of course, a catch: the personas must trade places in cycles of exactly one week, with either Elisabeth or Sue out in public while the other lies hidden in Elisabeth’s apartment, soaking up the nutrients that keep the two of them going. Before long, Elisabeth is finding her existence as Sue intoxicating and then addictive, and the story becomes sort of a Charlie Kaufman version of a Cronenberg version of All About Eve. When “Sue” extends her time in the world, the consequences are comically catastrophic. The Substance is a showcase for Moore, who’s never played a role as wild as this. (Although Qualley delivers everything the role of Sue demands, the film’s twisted heart is with Elisabeth). Fargeat, whose second feature this is (after the bloody Revenge), shows remarkable control over the material, extending from the performances and music (by Raffertie) to the expertly stylized production design (by Stanislas Reydellet) and costumes (by Emanuel Youchnowski). The Substance runs a bit long at 140 minutes, and it buries itself in prosthetics by the end, but it recovers with a perfectly crazed final shot. It will be quite interesting to see if this exercise in extremity can succeed in putting micro-indie MUBI on the box office map.
NUTCRACKERS (no distrib): David Gordon Green’s return from a quartet of studio horror thrillers and a lot of time producing and directing HBO comedies is an unabashed revival of the rude family comedies of the 1980s and 90s like Uncle Buck, Mr. Mom, and Big Daddy. Nutcrackers, written by Leland Douglas, is also a return for Ben Stiller, back to being the butt of the kind of humiliation comedies (The Cable Guy, Meet the Parents) that made him a star. Here he’s Michael, a generic big-city real estate middle management guy who drives a Porsche and thinks he’s on the verge of the big promotion he’s been waiting for. He has to travel back to the small town where he grew up, supposedly to sign the papers that will turn the four sons of his late sister (all played by real brothers named Janson) over to a foster family. After some machinations spearheaded by the local social services worker (Linda Cardellini) that don’t even try to make sense, Michael finds himself their surrogate father. He’s desperate to dump the ill-behaved boys off with anyone who will take them so he can return to his self-involved excuse for a life, but over the course of some time with the boys, would you believe he finds himself becoming a real dad? There isn’t a moment in Nutcrackers that doesn’t trace back to a decades-old trope, and the movie is even more shameless than that: as the title suggests, it’s Christmas time, and the final section centers around an impossibly cutesy performance of the holiday ballet. Nutcrackers has a few mild laughs, and Stiller is still reliable at being one step behind every other character and imbuing insensitivity with a touch of wistfulness. Still, for those who want to watch a movie like this, there are plenty of older-yet-fresher examples as close as the nearest streaming service. Nutcrackers may have an indie budget, but it has the impersonal predictability of an IP studio product.
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