United Kingdom, United States, France

Nominated for European Screenwriter 2024, European Film 2024

Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself?
You. Only better in every way.
You’ve got to try this product: The Substance.
It changed my life.
Elisabeth Sparkle, a former A-lister past her prime, finds herself suddenly fired from her fitness TV show by repellent studio head Harvey.
She is then drawn to the opportunity presented by a mysterious new drug: THE SUBSTANCE. All it takes is one injection and she is reborn – temporarily – as the gorgeous, twentysomething Sue.
The only rule? Time needs to be split: exactly one week in one body, then one week in the other. No exceptions. A perfect balance. What could go wrong?
Deliriously entertaining and ruthlessly satirical, Coralie Fargeat’s Cannes sensation turns toxic beauty culture inside out with a be-careful-what-you-wish-for fable for the ages. Explosive, provocative and twisted, THE SUBSTANCE marks the arrival of a thrillingly visionary filmmaker.

Written & directed by: Coralie Fargeat
Produced by: Coralie Fargeat, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner
Cinematography: Benjamin Kračun
Editing: Coralie Fargeat, Jérôme Eltabet, Valentin Féron
Production Design: Stanislas Reydellet
Costume Design: Emmanuelle Youchnovski
Make-Up & Hair: Pierre-Olivier Persin, Stéphanie Guillon, Frédérique Arguello
Original Score: Raffertie
Sound: Emmanuelle Villard, Valerie Deloof, Victor Fleurant, Stéphane Thiébaut, Victor Praud
Visual Effects: Bryan Jones, Pierre Procoudine-Gorsky, Chervin Shafaghi, Guillaume Legouez
Casting: Aisha Bywaters, Laure Cochner
Cast: Demi Moore (Elisabeth Sparkle), Margaret Qualley (Sue), Dennis Quaid (Harvey), Gore Abrams (Oliver), Oscar Lesage (Troy), Robin Greer (The Nurse), Hugo Diego Garcia (Diego), Tom Morton (The Doctor)

Statement of the director:
Women's bodies.
THE SUBSTANCE is a film about women's bodies.
About how women's bodies are scrutinised, fantasised about, criticised in the public space.
About how much, as women, we are led to believe that we have no choice but to be perfect/sexy/smiling/thin/young/beautiful to be valued in society.
And how impossible it is for women to escape this, no matter how educated, strong-minded and independent we may be ...
Because for more than 2000 years, women's bodies have been shaped and controlled by the desires of those who were looking at them ...
Everything around us, in commercials, movies, magazines, and displays showcases fantasised versions of ourselves. Always beautiful. And thin. And young. And sexy. The version of the “ideal woman” that is supposed to bring us love. Success. Happiness.
And if we step out of those boxes, whether it is with age, weight, curves ... then society tells us: you're done.
We don't want to see you anymore. We don't want you on our screens. We don't want you on the covers of our magazines.
We will just erase you from the public space.
You're not worth society's time and attention.
It's becoming even worse for young generations with social media ...
And I strongly believe that this is our jail. A jail society has built around us that has become a massive instrument of control and domination. A jail we think we want for ourselves.
And this movie is saying: it's about time to blow all this up. Cause how come this shit is still going on in 2024?!
I don't know a single woman who doesn't have a troubled relationship with her body, who hasn't had an eating disorder at some point of her life, who hasn't violently hated her body and herself because she didn't look the way society told her to look.
When I was about to turn 40, I started to feel very depressed because I thought, ok this is the end. The end of my life. I won't be able to please anymore, I won't be able to be valued, loved, noticed, interesting ...
At only 40, I was led to believe that my life was over ...
I studied political science; I am a feminist ... And yet. This shit had still found a way to permeate my brain.
I was absolutely convinced that past a certain age, I was going to be worth nothing. The exact same way that, when I was younger, I was absolutely convinced that if I was not thin and with a perfect body, I was worth nothing.
Insane, no?
So, I decided to write this film. To confront this.
And to make a political statement to the world: we should be done with this shit.
Genre films are political. For me as a filmmaker, they are a great way to confront political and personal matters through the lens of entertainment, fun, and excess.
Leaning all the way into the excess, I want to free my inner monster. Or rather what society made me think was a monster: this imperfect/aging/changing part of myself that I was taught to hide because, as a “woman”, that's not the way you're supposed to look/behave/think.
And that's why I'm coming to you with this story today.
It's about playing with the destruction of women's bodies to break free of those constraints that have been corseting women for so long.
We've been told for so long to control and hold back. Let's do the exact opposite.
Bodies here are going to be tyrannised, ridiculed, destroyed, the same way I truly believe society destroys women with all the rules that we are silently taught to follow.
This movie is going to be bloody gory.
And it's going to be bloody funny at the same time. Because I don't know any stronger weapon than satire to show the world the absurdity of its own rules.
And most importantly: I believe it's going to be bloody timely.
This is what this movie is about in the end. A liberation.
An empowerment.

Production:
Working Title
https://www.workingtitlefilms.com/

World Sales:
The Match Factory
www.the-match-factory.com