Film review: With “The Substance”, Coralie Fargeat examines the aging of Hollywood women

Our critics discuss cinema with The Substance by Coralie Fargeat, a horrific story about the aging of the female body and the weight of the gaze of Hollywood cinema and Juror #2 by Clint Eastwood, a trial film that has fun with the morality of its characters.

“The Substance” by Coralie Fargeat

Have you ever dreamed of a better version of yourself? With The Substance, it's now possible! Access another version of yourself, younger, more beautiful, more perfect. You just have to share the time. One week for one version, one week for the other. A perfect balance of seven days. Easy isn't it? If you follow the instructions, what could go wrong?

The Substance is the second feature film by French director Coralie Fargeat, after Revenge in 2017, which was already a genre film. This time, it's the aging of the female body that the filmmaker explores through the subgenre of body horror, with Demi Moore attempting to restore her youth thanks to a serum with monstrous side effects. Presented in official competition at the last Cannes Film Festival 2024, the film won the Screenplay Prize.

Critics' opinions

• Antoine Guillot: “The Substance examines with total complacency the body of Margareth Qualley, digitally retouched. It's a bit of a film that prides itself on making male gaze through the prism of female gaze. His use of gore is more or less of the same ilk. The film uses advertising language, calculated to be clear without having confidence either in itself or in the understanding of its spectators. And, since he emphasizes his words so much, the trouble is no longer really there. It's a cinema that tries to shock with something that no longer really shocks us, ultimately our eye slides over it in a pleasant way.“

• Murielle Joudet: “The film doesn't tell very original things and when it does it puts a lot of emphasis on it. It is built on a somewhat opportunistic recipe, that of genre cinema full of references associated with contemporary feminism. It's an aggressive and flashy film, but the experience is unmissable. I didn't manage to hate the film despite an initial desire on my part. Because behind the theoretical poverty of The Substance, there are things going on beneath the surface. The work on texture is fascinating, Demi Moore's body is scrutinized in a very precise, surgical way, opposed to Margareth Qualley close to perfection. For me, this film is mainly about old age in the digital age. The Substance gentrifies the references of horror cinema, and it's a film that I find very nice if I take it out of Cannes and its title of “auteur film”.”

The film was released in theaters on November 6, 2024.

“Juror #2” by Clint Eastwood

When a man finds himself a juror in a murder trial, he discovers that he is behind this criminal act. He then finds himself faced with a moral dilemma between protecting himself or giving himself up as his wife reaches the end of her pregnancy.

Juror #2 marks the return of Clint Eastwood behind the camera, three years after his last film Cry Macho which nevertheless had everything of a testamentary film. At 94 years old, the American director delivers a new trial film with complex morality, in an assumed connection with Twelve angry mende Sidney Lumet.

Critics' opinions

• Antoine Guillot: “Eastwood presents us here with a film which is a deceptively classic and slightly twisted variation of 12 Angry Men. At first glance we say to ourselves, “what is this highly edited TV film?”, then we find the director, at least in his basic theme. He is a man who will find all possible solutions to escape his family duty, even if it means prolonging the debates again and again. The main character begins as an ideal of the American dream that is too smooth, bland; and finally, Eastwood shatters the smooth image of the small American home. In addition, the character of the prosecutor is very interesting. It seems to suggest that the filmmaker instead places his faith in a female figure to save the troubled values ​​of the other characters.“

• Murielle Joudet: “Eastwood's cinema is the question of frozen time that we repair, that we go back. Unlike his previous films, this is no longer a testamentary film but rather a work which announces several others to follow. However, the film is captivating only if we accept certain inconsistencies and unthoughts in the script. It becomes interesting when we approach it as a film about the flat happiness of the American dream and the anguish of conjugality that the main character is fleeing. I think Clint Eastwood can't film happiness and it's this anguish, this guilt of being happy, that he puts on screen.“

The film was released in theaters on October 30, 2024.

Sound clips

• Movie trailer The Substance by Coralie Fargeat
• Movie trailer Juror #2 de Clint Eastwood