1: The Substance
One film ruled us all this year, judging from the 24 lists we gathered. The margins between our numbers two, three and four may have been small but our number one wasn't: Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance got more than twice as many points as The Brutalist got. One of the angriest films I've seen in ages, it hit our sweet spots while it poured bile over them. Back in May, in Cannes, Eric Ortiz Garcia already called it "One of the year's best genre movies" in his review. He could have left the word genre out.
Several writers wanted to chime in some more on the film. Our Michele "Izzy" Galgana had this to say:
It’s an incredible time to be alive for many reasons, both good and downright terrible. One of the best things to happen in cinema is Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance. This film is more than a film, it is a battlecry. The Substance is not concerned with being polite, only one of the subtly insidious forms hoisted on those who identify as women. This is a world that tells us to be quiet, sit down, be happy with what you get, don’t take up space, do what we tell you, and smile while doing it. Then when we have no more use for you, go away, get out of our sight.
The Substance is a massive middle finger to all of this. We are tired of it. The film holds up a mirror to this world and how women are treated in it, and we can thank the director’s union in France (Fargeat has gone on record about this) for their support of female filmmakers with actual funding and not performative DEI checklists that never pan out but for the richest and most connected.
When Fargeat refused to alter the ending of the film, Universal sold it to Mubi, and the rest is history. Not only has the film made a deep impact in culture with its ferocious, give-no-fucks storytelling, it’s gone on to make its budget several times over and nabbed five Golden Globe nominations. And that ending is messy and gleefully chaotic. It’s what we deserve, and it’s almost like audiences actually love original, creative works with a different point of view. More, please.
Then we have Kyle Logan, who says this:
The Substance may be the filmic equivalent of the famous "I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards" quote/joke. But it’s not only in the writing that Coralie Fargeat refuses to engage subtlety, she pushes every aspect of the film to its extreme. The cinematography’s sheen is sometimes hard to look at, the costumes don’t convey character so much as draw our eyes to the characters with their bold bright colors, the sound design regularly hits a pitch that’s near sickening, and of course, all those shots of Margaret Qualley’s butt. Yet it’s a perfect instance of “feature not a bug,” as that maximalism makes The Substance impossible to look away from and one of the best films of the year.
And Dave Canfield added:
The greatness of Coralie Fargeats film lies in deft movement between the cold and soulless meat market of celebrity and that of raw bleeding humanity trying to forestall its inevitable trip to the slaughterhouse. Demi Moore, whose own name ironically resembles demure- part of a catch phrase of late for the younger generation playing at innocence, plays an aging celebrity risking her last bit of dignity in a bid for sex symbol relevance. In one heart breaking scene she stares into a mirror getting ready for a date with a nerdy high school chum she’s reconnected with. It’s a moment of lost redemption as she desperately applies layer after layer of makeup unable to accept herself as she is.
Margaret Qualley plays the new, supposedly better version of Moore with equal depth. No mere sexpot. She is the embodiment of callous ambition and appetite, willing to devour Moore's life for fame and fortune. At one point she answers the door to her apartment staring down her annoying awkward male neighbor. The scene would be all about empowerment if Qualley’s character wasn’t so unapproachable unconcerned with anyone but herself.
Perhaps the film is best summed up by it’s central metaphor of how celebrity is personified in it’s dysfunctional world. A group of women performing aerobics as a camera scans their leotarded frames from head to taint in closeup. To be queen of this world is to be essentially faceless underscoring the films final move towards a grotesque transformation.
