Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark: November 2024

Thursday, November 28, 2024

Megalopolis, Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

Roamin’ Around in New Rome

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue below [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! (I hope)

As this cartoon indicates, the supposed intentions of American Thanksgiving at times can barely hide the horrible schisms haunting our culture ever since those first undocumented immigrants arrived on our shores, but maybe for at least part of one day this week we can put our conflicts aside in a pursuit of higher callings the protagonist of this week’s film hopes to find within our better angels.

11/28/2024: A few hours ago when I first attempted to post these comments for my regular intrusion into your life, I couldn't get into Google Blogspot at all, nor could I find any help in solving this problem so I posted a possible Two Guys in the Dark farewell on Facebook and LinkedIn. Later, I stumbled onto a link that allowed me into my blog so I'm posting this week's review after all. Hopefully, the problem's solved and I'll be back on a regular basis, but if not, I'll say adios and aloha!

Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola)

rated R 138 min.

Here’s the trailer:

(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;

activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

Across the roughly 110 years of Hollywood-based feature-cinema there have been many directors who had long, illustrious careers (some of them still working today), remembered for many accomplishments as years rolled on—people like Alfred Hitchcock, Frank Capra, John Ford, William Wyler, Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee—but there have also been famous filmmakers with indelible marks on the medium even though their most-celebrated-work came somewhat early on with later releases not garnering the kind of critical acclaim drawn by their initial triumphs. Despite his ongoing fame in both the filmic and wine industries, Coppola fits this description because his 1970s triumphs (co-screenwriter of Patton [Franklin J. Schaffner, 1970], director of The Godfather [1972], The Godfather Part II [1974], The Conversation [1974], Apocalypse Now [1979]), which won him 5 Oscars (see this site for full credits of his career up to now) led to little such praise for his later work, although he was Oscar-nominated for the critically-disputed The Godfather Part III (1990) as a Best Picture producer and Best Director.* What really mattered to him for decades after that early fame, though, was to activate the story set as a warning about America’s future, which has finally emerged as Megalopolis, even though he had to sell a big chunk of his wine holdings to finance this production, then had to further absorb some marketing costs when he finally found a distributor, Lionsgate, after a mixed reception while competing for the top prize Palme d’Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, even as the OCCU has been unsupportive (Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at 45%, plus Metacritic's unusually higher (not by much) 55% average score.

*Just like Coppola, famed filmmaker Orson Welles found few successes as his career tailed off considerably after his astonishing debut feature of Citizen Kane (1941), which reigned for 50 years (starting in 1962) as #1 on the All-Time Top 100 as determined by an international survey of film critics conducted by Sight & Sound magazine. However, Welles’ last great release, Touch of Evil (1958), found the sort of recognition and personal satisfaction Coppola’s seeking too with Megalopolis, even partially with the ’58 studio-edited original version, then fully with an after-the-fact “director’s cut” (1998; Welles died 1985), based on Welles’ 58-page memo detailing all his intentions.

In keeping with my COVID concerns about sharing auditoriums with large crowds, I’ve continued to stay away from theaters since this film’s domestic (U.S.-Canada) opening on September 27, 2024 (looks like my concern is ill-founded as it’s made only $7.6 million since then [$13.7 million worldwide]),** but it’s now come to streaming so I rented it from Apple TV+ for $19.99 (also available from Amazon Prime Video, same price, but Jeff Bezos gets enough of our business as is for other purchases [plus I’m still pissed at him for blocking The Washington Post’s endorsement of Kamala Harris for President for whatever Trump-fears he may have had]), watched it last weekend. So, with all of this background (footnotes too) on the film in focus this week, why, you ask, haven’t I started reviewing it yet; there are 2 reasons for that: (1) It’s a convoluted plot with a lot of characters and activities, difficult to address, and (2) when I saw it I’d had less than ideal sleep the 2 previous nights (car and refrigerator repairs), along with a nice dinner and a couple of tasty beverages, so I wasn’t as lucid as I might have been. Yet, as I try to write these streaming-based-reviews as if I’ve seen the film in a theater only once (with some Internet help, no matter what) I’ve had to carry on here with foggy memory and notes, so just bear with me as I try to navigate this most complex story.

**After debuting in 1,854 venues it dropped off the Box Office Mojo chart a month later, although it’s still playing in 1 place in the boondocks of my San Francisco Bay Area. I learned about it being found in streaming by watching a recent interview with Coppola on CBS TV’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert as the host quickly mentioned the streaming option. Thanks, Stephen; very helpful!

Coppola has somewhat based Megalopolis on the ancient 63 BCE Catillinian conspiracy,*** which ultimately led to the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. If you need more plot details and explanations than I’m providing, you can consult this informative site and/or this probing video (11:59) to help you out. In Coppola’s film I get the impression old Rome collapsed but was replaced (if I understood this correctly) with New Rome in what we call North America, with its capital—somewhat modeled on New York City—also called New Rome (in the 21^st century). As with the old Empire, the elite are corrupt, there’s lots of hedonism within the city, most of the citizens are poor, and power struggles are constant (there are also chariot races in Madison Square Garden). Idealist architect Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) has grand plans for building an Eden-like city called Megalopolis, using a fabulous building material he invented, Megalon (won him a Nobel Prize)—he also has the mysterious power to stop time, which he does occasionally, freezing everyone else. Years earlier his wife disappeared, he was prosecuted for her murder by District Attorney Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), was acquitted. Cicero’s now mayor of New Rome still acting as Catilina’s antagonist, who mourns for his wife, driving away his jealous lover, TV personality Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza). Instead of Megalopolis, Cicero wants a massive casino to fill the city’s coffers. Cicero’s daughter, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), finds herself attracted to Catilina, even can move when he stops time, then when he loses his power he regains it when she joins with him; soon they’re joined as lovers. Wow marries Cesar’s elderly uncle Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight), the world’s richest man, but his other nephew, Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf), wants to push Cesar out of the way so he releases a video of his cousin having sex with supposed-teenager Vesta Sweetwater (Grace VanderWaal) until Julia has proof Vesta is in her 20s.

***Here are a few highlights about this ancient event to help note parallels with Coppola’s film. In 63 BCE the Roman Empire circled the Mediterranean Sea from what we call Spain through parts of the Middle East into North Africa’s deserts, but it suffered from debt, inner corruption, unemployment with no solutions from the Roman Senate. A year earlier, Lucius Sirgis Catiline, a near-bankrupt aristocrat, competed with Marcus Tullius Cicero—orator, statesman, philosopher, poet—for 1 of the 2 ruling positions of Consul, which Cicero won (irrelevant Gaius Antonius Hybrida got the other post); Catiline was charged with extortion but acquitted, still there were rumors he’d killed his wife and son. Due to a situation of rebellion, Catiline was to be executed, tried to escape, died. Julius Caesar became dictator in 49 BCE, with Cicero making an enemy of Mark Antony who had him beheaded in 43 BCE after Caesar’s assassination (44 BCE), leading to several centuries of Caesar Emperors until the Western Roman Empire collapsed (Eastern Roman Empire continued for many centuries).

⇒The old Soviet Union’s still operational in this story as one of its satellites crashes into New Rome destroying much of the city, so Catilina begins building Megalopolis, with Clodio becoming a fascist demagogue, stirring up the massive poor against this project, resulting in an attempt to kill Catilina but surgeons repair his skull with Megalon. Crassus retaliates, killing Wow, injuring Clodio. Then Catilina makes peace with Cicero, the former winning over the rioting crowd who turn instead on Clodio. Megalopolis is completed, Catilina and Julia have a baby, Sunny Hope, who’s unaffected when Mom stops time on New Year’s Eve.⇐ There’s truly a lot to attempt to keep up with here, especially if (like me) you don’t come into it with an awareness of the Catillian conspiracy, although even if you were so forewarned I’d wager you’d still have some trouble keeping track of all the characters, their various ambitions and deceits, and whether the ending is a viable alternative to what’s come before, as much as I’d like to think a dedicated-optimist such as Cesar, purely through oratory (including quoting some of Shakespeare’s epic Hamlet [c.1599-1601]), could lead both his enemies and the general population into sharing his utopian vision of a better future for New Rome (and the U.S.A. for that matter). Those concerns aside, the screen presences of many of the cast, especially Driver, Esposito, and Emmanuel, are powerful while the majestic imagery-collection of cinematography and art direction is stunning. Not enough for the larger critical community, but there are some passionate defenders, including my local cinematic guru, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Mick LaSalle, who counters his colleagues’ rejections with: “In terms of both artistry and audacity, ‘Megalopolis’ qualifies as the biggest thing that happened in cinema this year. […] ‘Megalopolis’ is not a conventional movie that makes you wonder what’s going to happen next. It’s a spectacle and a provocation that makes you marvel at what is going on in the moment. […] Coppola has done something new. If he did something new at 45, he’d deserve praise. At 85, he deserves praise and awe. [¶] If ‘Megalopolis’ is his last movie, I’ve never seen a better exit." A minority opinion, but wow!

Maybe if I see it again (I probably will at some point, coughing up another 20 bucks) I could be that enthusiastic—despite my admiration for Coppola’s larger body of work—but for now let’s just say I was fascinated by it, couldn’t always follow the whos and whats of the various scenes, wish more had been incorporated about that time-stoppage situation, yet I do agree this is cinematic ambition at its finest (even if the result is negotiable, even as aspects of it call to mind our current U.S. political situation) so if you’re intrigued enough by all of this to gamble on a viewing of Megalopolis I think at the very least you’ll rarely see something like it again. OK, enough babble, let’s call a halt to this epistle with my usual finale of a Musical Metaphor, which this time will be Bob Dylan’s “When I Paint My Masterpiece” (you’ll find slightly different versions of it on different albums; I first heard it on 1971’s Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Vol. II [although I don’t think it was ever a hit]) at https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=qWfaSle5sIs—this version’s from 2013’s The Bootleg Series Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait (1968-1971)—but his frequent collaborators, The Band, also put it on their 1971 Cahoots album so, just for comparison, here’s Dylan with them from a 1972 concert. It was difficult for me to find any one song that could address all that Coppola has woven into Megalopolis (Interested to see what he thinks about his own long-gestated-creation? If so, here’s an interview with him), but this one makes specific references to the old Rome that fuels New Rome, implying the fallen grandeur of the old, looking forward to the triumph of the new: “Oh, the streets of Rome are filled with rubble / Ancient footprints are everywhere / You can almost think that you’re seein’ double / On a cold, dark night by the Spanish Stairs / […] Someday, everything is gonna sound like a rhapsody / When I paint my masterpiece.” Is this film what Coppola sees as his “masterpiece”? Ultimately, it’s up to us to answer that in our own perspectives, no matter what’s in his self-analysis. (If you do watch, keep an eye out for minor roles for Coppola relatives Talia Shire and her son, Jason Schwartzman, along with other big-screen idols ,such as Laurence Fishburne and Dustin Hoffman.)

SHORT TAKES

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

Some options for your consideration: (1) Beatles '64 review, documentary available on Disney+ on November 29, 2024; (2) Wicked: Part One's records on opening weekend; (3) The possible "Trump Effect" on the 2025 Oscars; and (4) 5 reasons why Wicked: Part One could win Best Picture Oscar next spring (I do very much look forward to seeing it, may have to visit a theater;

this site also has Variety’s current predictions for all of the upcoming Oscar category nominees).

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list). Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage. If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page. We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us! Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post. You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged farts).

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please

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Wednesday, November 20, 2024

My Old Ass, Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

“This is the long-distance call”

(taken from the lyrics of Paul Simon’s "The Boy in the Bubble" [1986 Graceland album],

which otherwise has no connection with this movie except for the similar oddities)

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

My Old Ass (Megan Park) rated R 89 min.

Here’s the trailer:

(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;

activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

While there were some interesting other choices for something to see/review this week, I took My Old Ass mostly because of its connections to what I explored last week, The Substance,* although while the similarities concern the meeting of a younger and older version of the same person the plot differences are drastic as the former’s about an aging (just 50, but you know how youth-obsessed our culture can be [apparently except for certain politicians who keep getting re-elected over the decades]) media celebrity who, through mysterious circumstances, creates a younger version of herself with calamity following whereas in My Old Ass the younger (18) version of Elliot (Maisy Stella)—finishing her summer after high school in Canadian cranberry farm country (her family’s been doing this for generations) before soon heading off to college in Toronto—suddenly meets the 39-year-old-version of herself (Aubrey Plaza) who’s somehow (never explained) come to offer some crucial advice to younger Elliot. The Substance is ultimately a grotesque, mad-science horror film where the new woman (calls herself Sue, played by Margaret Qualley) never makes clear what she knows of the life and experiences of her older self (Elisabeth, played by Demi Moore) while in My Old Ass young Elliot knows nothing of her future beyond the present minute while older Elliot is clearly aware of everything that’s happened during the ensuing 21 years, although the primary change she asks of the younger one would presumably upset her current timeline (as with Marty McFly’s parents in Back to the Future [Robert Zemeckis, 1985]), so she may actually be asking for more than she can handle. To better understand all of this, how about a quick summary of the plot?

*In that review I linked to a video about the film (14:50) which led to a comment by my wife, Nina, when she read my posting. She wonders why it included graphics of quotes by director Coralie Fargeat rather than footage of the filmmaker saying what she does about her intentionally-disturbing work; I can’t speak to this, but I will let Fargeat speak for herself (along with her primary actors) in a 16:16 clip after the film’s screening at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. Then, for balance, here’s director Park, (23:01) along with her main actors as they discuss their related-yet-quite-different-movie. Thanks to Nina for steering me toward these explorations of the 2 narratives.

Young Elliot is having a peaceful time, much of it spent in a rowboat around a lake near the family farm when she’s not in town kissing her girlfriend, Chelsea (Alexandria Rivera), as Elliot sees herself as a proudly-out lesbian. Then, ruining a family (Mom Kathy [Maria Dizzia], Dad Tom [Al Goulem], brothers older Max [Seth Isaac Johnson] and younger Spenser [Carter Trozzolo]) surprise of a dinner cake for her 18^th birthday, Elliot goes on an overnight camping trip with her friends Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler) and Ro (Kerrice Brooks), their true purpose being to get high from some mushroom tea. Off by herself after indulging, Elliot’s shocked to suddenly be next to the older version of herself who tells her to get closer with her family and avoid a boy named Chad. Next morning, Elliot assumes this was all simple hallucination but finds older Elliot (now a Ph.D. student) has left her phone number, under the name My Old Ass (as a response to her younger self wanting to kiss the older one or at least touch her butt) which works fine when younger Elliot makes a call (with the implication older Elliot’s receiving the connection in her own time frame of the future) so she’s mysteriously, jarringly real. Soon enough, though, young Elliot meets Chad while swimming in the lake, then finds him invited to join a family breakfast as he’ll be doing some type of work at the farm.

Elliot keeps trying to avoid him even as she realizes she’s attracted, decides maybe she’s bisexual after all, but can’t get a response from her older self as to what’s the problem with Chad. ⇒ Over the course of the next few scenes Elliot finds out from Max that Dad’s about to sell the farm (this upsets her, even though she has no interest in inheriting it); she gets the last of the mushroom tea from Ro in an attempt to conjure up older Elliot but just hallucinates she’s Justin Bieber, sings his “One Less Lonely Girl” song; finds out Chad already attends her Toronto college and has sex with him. Then, older Elliot comes back, finally admits Chad will die of cancer so she’s been trying to protect her younger self from the heartbreak that will cause but decides to simply go away and let teenage Elliot live her own life (although—unnoted in the script—she now knows her new lover will die, so she’ll have to start living with that sadness earlier in her life).⇐ My Old Ass is a pleasure to watch, although I’d have preferred to see more of older Elliot, but I have to understand the focus here is on the younger woman and the mixed feelings she has for Chad, knowing she’s seriously attracted to him enough to challenge her own identity-assumptions while knowing that something’s not right for her about him, as warned from her that’s-all-I’m-gonna-say older self. (Very frustrating!)

Stella does a solid job of holding the primary focus of this story, but as an older person myself (admittedly, decades beyond 39) I’d have been interested in getting a fuller sense of older Elliot, given we end up knowing so little about her (via one of those phone calls we sense she has at least one child; if there’s a mate of some sort as well in her life [or not] we’ll just have to imagine the details of that on our own). Compared to the horrible events in The Substance, this movie’s pairing of different-aged-versions of the same person is quiet, generally comforting, encouraging for the teenage protagonist that her life will go on—despite whatever challenges she has to face—even take her far beyond her current foggy sense of a future into the higher realms of academia (although being a grad student at 39 implies she’s encountered quite a few sidetrips along the way of ongoing adulthood). I can easily highly recommend a viewing of My Old Ass (even though we never get any clarity on how/why older Elliot’s time travel occurs), as does the CCAC with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at a strong 90%, the Metacritic average score at 74% (encouraging for these misers; actually, these numbers are about what they gave to The Substance except MC was a bit higher for that one). It was released in domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters on September 13, 2024 but seems to have disappeared from such venues (made $5.4 million gross, a bit more internationally for $5.7 million worldwide), so if you want to see it you’ll need to turn to Amazon Prime Video where it’s free to subscribers (or you can get a 30-day free trial, $8.99 a month if you choose to stay longer), so I think you’d find it to be a delightful (if a little thin once you’re settled with the foundational premise), easily-consumed investment of your entertainment options (not overdone there either with such a useful, compact running time) that won’t run your emotions into the ground as with the disturbing, much-longer The Substance (although I do consider that one to be a more profound cinematic experience as long as you can tolerate the increasingly-ugly images along with the misogynistic content intended for a critique yet still a shameful reality in our world, as grotesque as those visuals).

I’ll wrap this up as usual with a Musical Metaphor, which may seem off-base this time because it’s the Beach Boys’ “When I Grow Up (to be a Man)” (on their 1965 The Beach Boys Today! album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EzEhW1VO9M (from 1964; a poor video but it does show the original 5 members of the band; a somewhat better version is here [for the visuals, but audio's not so great in this one], from their 2012 50^th anniversary tour [which I saw in Berkeley, CA], with short-termer [filled in for Al Jardine for awhile] David Marks up front [on screen left; I don't know who the guy is on your farthest left, out of the spotlight]] to join Mike Love and Jardine, then the camera pans right some to show Bruce Johnson [replaced Brian Wilson for live shows from the mid-1960s, also joined in on recordings] on the far right, then Brian on the far left; sadly, Carl and Dennis Wilson, both dead, could only appear via video clips). Now, I’m not implying with this song that Elliot will go transgender (not that there's anything wrong with that; although if she did, she’d already have a gender-neutral name), it’s just that these lyrics, with slight modification, do speak to teenage Elliot’s quandaries about her future, so it you just imagine changing “man” to “woman” (with a little tweak in intonation when singing) and “their old man’s” to “their old Mom’s” it would all work just fine (at least to my silly assumptions). In fact, if Elliot is bisexual then the line “Will I look for the same things in a woman that I dig in a girl?” fits as written (how convenient for my premise!). Well, I’ll leave you to contemplate whatever you like about Elliot’s present/future situation (damn, I wish I knew what she does about what happens with the 2028 election and beyond, but at least the world doesn’t seem to have died from climate change or warfare yet) with encouragement to see it, evaluate it for yourself.

One final bit of age-related-commentary comes to mind when I see this movie as an MGM release—celebrating that studio’s 100 years of Hollywood existence with its logo of Leo the lion and the Latin declaration Ars Gratia Artis, “Arts for Arts Sake”—yet it’s actually an Amazon MGM Studios product as a tentpole of America’s cinematic past is now joined with a current blockbuster corporation, so for me it’s not only a likely progression of how such big-budget enterprises navigate the commercial landscape but also a bit sad how this entertainment giant's now just a unit of a marketing juggernaut.

SHORT TAKES

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

(1) How Conclave became a box-office hit (I’m anxious for it to come to steaming);

and (2) Conan O'Brien to host the 2025 Oscars show (I also look forward to that).

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

Wednesday, November 13, 2024

The Substance, Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

What Lurks Within

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

The Substance (Coralie Fargeat) rated R 141min.

Here’s the trailer:

(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;

activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

(This will be a long plot summary because there’s a “hell” of a lot going on here.) Former movie star/current TV exercise guru Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore)—which we know about immediately by seeing her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a scene from her televised workout routine—has just turned 50, finds herself being pushed off of her show by sleazy/ratings-hungry producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid), who wants a younger, sexier presence for the format. As Elisabeth’s driving away from the studio she becomes distracted by seeing a billboard of herself being torn down, crashes her car, is sent to a hospital for evaluation. She’s deemed medically-fit but quietly receives a flash drive from a young nurse which is about a process called The Substance which promises a “younger, more beautiful, more perfect” version of her so she acquires it only to find out the required injection doesn’t make her younger but instead results in a younger version of herself emerging from her back, causing her to go unconscious as the nude younger woman (Margaret Qualley) sews up Elisabeth’s gaping back skin, then knows she must inject her older self with a weekly liquid food supply and take out from Elisabeth’s spinal column a daily stabilizer fluid to inject in herself, with the absolute admonition each woman can only be conscious for 7 days before switching back with the other, as a male voice on their phone line to Substance HQ emphasizes these 2 are actually truly 1.

The younger woman calls herself Sue, goes to the audition for Elisabeth’s replacement, gets the job with the proviso she needs to be off every other week to care for her sick mother (may not fully be a lie, as Elisabeth—in a near-mythological manner [see Zeus and Athena]—gave “birth” to Sue). Sexy Sue becomes an overnight sensation, with Elisabeth's downside when Sue wants more than 7 days awake at so she siphons off extra doses of her older self’s stabilizer fluid to inject into herself, giving her more days in control. When Elisabeth next comes into consciousness she sees 1 finger aged noticeably, so she contacts Substance HQ only to learn there’s no reversal process, she has to accept she and Sue are one with the need for them to work out their problems (how they’re supposed to do this when one of them is comatose isn’t explained). As time progresses, Elisabeth continues to age, becomes a recluse, sits around her elaborate domain gorging on junk food (in a grotesque scene, this causes Sue to pull a cooked chicken drumstick out of her navel) as the two women come to detest each other, even as Sue is scheduled to host a major New Year’s Eve telecast; Elisabeth's forced to continue the situation because if she stops her body will remain aged, even as Sue continues to abuse the process with those ongoing extra doses of Elisabeth's stabilizer.

However, 3 months later just before the big event Sue no longer has any more stabilizer to steal. Substance HQ says she must switch with Elisabeth again in order for the older woman to produce more fluid, but when Elisabeth awakens she finds herself as hideous: near-bald, a hunchback, other deformities. ⇒She gets a serum intended to terminate Sue, then stops halfway through the injection awakening Sue; they fight, with Sue killing Elisabeth, then she’s off to the TV spectacular even as she begins to deteriorate as well as teeth, fingernails, and a ear fall off. She rushes back home, desperately uses the original activator in an attempt to produce a better version of herself, but what comes out is even more hideous than older Elisabeth, a grotesque monster (a screen title calls it Monstro Elisasue [just as the previous 2 protagonists—who serve as their own antagonists—had been identified]); if you wish to know more about how it was created, go here) who tears a face photo of Elisabeth from a poster to hide her own face (actual faces of Elisabeth and Sue also protrude from the malformed body), takes the stage in front of a full auditorium, but the mask falls off, the audience is horrified, the creature is attacked which spews blood all over everyone, then it escapes but outside its body explodes, with just Elisabeth’s face and some body goo sliming its way to Elisabeth’s Hollywood star. Next morning a sidewalk cleaner guy just washes this muck away.⇐

Recently, I reviewed It's What's Inside, which I discussed as a mad-scientist horror film, not sci-fi, due to the technology being employed to shift a person’s consciousness into another body, with tragic results for all involved. Likewise, The Substance is often called sci-fi because of the deadly technology involved (with clear warnings about dire consequences if procedures aren’t properly followed), but I’d put it in that same horror category due to the unnatural adjustments to a human body (Frankenstein, anyone?) which take their toll on both Elisabeth and Sue as they reject their supposed-“oneness” with dire consequences for both. In this video (14:50) Lucas Blue goes into extensive analysis of this film (SPOILERS, of course), augmented by statements from Fargeat and Moore about society’s insidious, misogynistic expectations of women which become so engrained in far too many of our population (especially those in the public eye or who wish that for themselves, even on just a local level) that older women would sacrifice aspects of themselves for cultural recognition just as younger ones would do the same to achieve/maintain such a manufactured fame.

In part, this challenging film is a quite depressing story because it speaks to truths that shouldn’t need to exist, along with being hard to watch when Monstro emerges, but if you can stomach the disturbing visuals that increase with the various deteriorations I think you’d find The Substance to be a marvelous cinematic achievement with intense acting, powerful visuals (especially closeups on the faces of the women, fisheye-lens exaggerations of Quaid’s disgusting character), and a worthwhile message even if you have to endure surreal circumstances to understand it. Certainly, the CCAL joins me in highly recommending this disturbing experience, as the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are at 90% while the Metacritic average score is a hefty (for them) 78%.* Need further incentive? At the 2024 Cannes Film Festival it was nominated for the Palm d’Or top prize, won Best Screenplay for Fargeat. If you’re interested, you have several options to see it: The Substance still plays in 205 domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters, down from a high of 1,949, having made about $16 million so far ($48.5 globally); you can buy it for $19.99 from Apple TV+ (this platform’s free for 7 days, then $9.99 monthly if you stay); it’s also free for 7 days on MUBI (again, $9.99 a month if you stay) or there’s a MUBI-Amazon Prime Video combo free for 7 days (it's $10.99 monthly if you stay).

*Which, by my interpretation, brings me in line with these more-acknowledged critics in that my 4 of 5 stars, 80%, essentially matches the current MC score while with RT numbers the question isn’t how good but just is it good or bad so their results are usually higher than the MC reviews' average. With RT the highest they can go is into the 90s up to the extremely-rare 100%; yet, for me, my normal highest is the aforementioned 4 stars (saving 4½ and 5 stars for truly medium-defining-cinema), so my usual highest I find to be plausibly similar to what RT pushes into their highest level, as an RT 95% simply means one of the best offerings of a given year whereas my 95% (4½ stars) is based on the entire sweep of cinema from the early 20^th century. So, of 52 releases both I and RT/MC have reviewed this year, by my rationale I’ve agreed with at least 1 of these critic-compilation services for 32 of them with at least 1 match of those 2 sites (where we diverge in these, I’m often higher, although it’s about 50/50 regarding higher or lower when we don’t converge our results at all).

By now, you may have sensed a similarity between this film and the famous Oscar Wilde novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)—adapted into a play and a few films including one by Albert Lewin (1945), another by Oliver Parker (2009)—where a handsome, aristocratic young man sells his soul so he’ll stay young while the image on his painted portrait ages over time, but, hidden away, no one sees it—while Dorian lives a life of debauchery—until circumstances lead to tragedy, so there are certainly parallels with, or at least allusions to, Wilde’s narrative and our current film. Yet, the ultimate focus of Wilde’s book is on the dangers of moral transgressions by anyone whereas The Substance is a harsh critique of how women are marginalized in contemporary media content, brainwashed to actively buy into such dehumanization. As with my recent review of Woman of the Hour about a serial killer who preyed on females, The Substance isn’t an easy experience to watch, but both are quite well-made (especially the latter) with lessons to be learned that aren’t truly fictional. To bring all this to closure, here’s my Musical Metaphor, Pink Floyd’s “Time” (1973 The Dark Side of the Moon album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEGL7j2LN84, not only because of lyrics such as “The sun is the same in a relative way / But you’re older / Shorter of breath / And one day closer to death” but also in this video what you have is an edited compilation of band members David Gilmore and Roger Waters from separate concerts after Waters left in an acrimonious manner so it would seem they’re again one but actually are as separated as Elisabeth and Sue. Even if you don’t explore this film I hope you’ll enjoy the song which may help with “Ticking away / The moments that make up a dull day” (or an awful election nightmare, as the case may be).

SHORT TAKES

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

Some options: (1) Paramount adds 3.5 million streaming subscribers despite TV, movie losses; (2) Sony Pictures profits slip in second quarter; (3) IMDb's November screening calendar; (4) IMDb's 5 Things to Watch on the week of 11/11/2024 (help yourself; I’m not all that interested).

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