The Substance

 

French writer / director Coralie Fargeat's The Substance is a celluloid nightmare of body grotesquerie that floods the screen with more blood and viscera than has ever been presented by masters of repulsion Davids Cronenberg and Lynch.

Demi Moore plays celebrated-film-star-turned-fitness-guru Elisabeth Sparkle, who receives word from her unbelievably sexist boss Harvey (Dennis Quaid) that she's run out of audience appeal and the studio would be looking for someone younger and prettier to replace her.

When Elisabeth follows a murky lead to a solution for aging that will transform her into her "best self," she's introduced to The Substance, a program that offers bodily changes on the cellular level by creating another, separate, perkier version of Elisabeth.

The program warns Elisabeth that she and her alter ego, who takes the name Sue (Margaret Qualley), are limited to a week each before switching back to the other. They can continue this exchange indefinitely, but the time limit rule -- among others -- is not to be broken, which, of course, means it will.

Sue goes to the studio and in short order becomes television's new fitness darling, leaving Elisabeth to sulk and gorge. The experiment soon goes off the rails, as we fully expected, and Fargeat's stunningly imaginative production and sound designs shift into high gear to make fuller comment on dysmorphia and misogyny.

Moore is a wonderful and underrated actress, IMO, who does phenomenal work here as Elisabeth's physical and mental states steadily decay. Qualley (who also appears in Yorgos Lanthimos' latest freak-out Kinds of Kindness) is a fierce presence who handles her highly physical role with enormous commitment even when covered in a hundred pounds of foam and latex.

The Substance is not an enjoyable film, strictly speaking. It is exhausting and revolting, but it is also instructive, insightful, frightening and weirdly funny, so the disorientation and nauseousness are not wholly gratuitous.

Ghastly imagery comprises three-quarters of the film, with the last quarter the true test of the audience's mettle. It will take a lot of fortitude -- and a strong stomach -- to stick with it to the bitter, bitter end.

Don't eat before going.

Never Let Go

 

Alexandre Aja's Never Let Go is a modest tale of possession and evil that doubles (triples?) as a story about family ties (literally) and faith, truth and trust.

Halle Berry stars as the mother of twin boys Sam and Nolan (Anthony B. Jenkins and Percy Daggs IV, respectively) and the three have taken refuge in their cabin in a forest where "evil" waits to take possession of them. The cabin is secured by a blessing that keeps the demons at bay. Or does it?

On their daily foraging excursions, the three tie around their waists a thick rope that is secured to the cabin's foundation. Momma says the connection protects them from spirits that only she sees.

As provisions run out and foraging produces less and less -- they're reduced to eating tree bark -- Nolan questions more and more his mother's stories. His doubts turn an already perilous situation into a fiery nightmare.

Oscar-winner Berry, who is also one of the movie's producers, is a steady anchor in a picture that asks relatively little of her as the lead. She is the veteran in what is ostensibly a three-character flick.

Berry has a couple of wonderful scenes -- one midway through in which she offers her sons insight into the kind of threats that lurk around them, although she doesn't say why, only that the evil got to them.

The other I won't spoil by giving away too much, but it involves a heartbreaking decision that could mean the difference between life and death. Berry nails it, solidly.

Sam and Nolan (two strong performances from child actors) actually dominate the last third of the picture, as the cabin walls no longer offer them safety and they face harsh truths their Momma has kept from them.

The narrative in Never Let Go is pretty sparse in background and context even though the mythology upon which the movie's central conceit -- the rope -- feels fresh, to me. Aja's production design is suitably pasty and claustrophobic, his demons and ghouls restrained compared to big budget horror shows.

But that's no matter because the movie's greatest appeal, to me, is its depiction of familial, especially filial, devotion, and how love can both heal and harm.

Maggie Smith

 

Dame Maggie Smith's only leading role Oscar was for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), in which she played the title character, a teacher in a Scottish girls' school.

While reflecting on the picture last night, using a contemporary-culture lens, I began to see the auburn-haired Brodie as something other than a lonely spinster who toyed with men's affections while captivating her young charges with her spirited rejection of convention and mores, hiding her sadness behind bravado and shallow charm.

As I listened more intently to all of those wonderful words coming out of Dame Maggie's mouth, it occurred to me that this marvelous character (based on the Muriel Sparks novel and given cinematic life by screenwriter Jay Presson Allen) was a thoroughgoing narcissist, enamored of her own irrepressibility and unwilling to bend favorably toward anyone who would not feed her egoism.

What a rich, layered performance by Dame Maggie, whose clipped aristocratic warble was a terrific invention in itself! I studied more closely her affect when finally confronting her demons, as they were shown to her by a student (Pamela Franklin) who had grown tired of Miss Brodie's manipulation and emotional indifference.

That last-reel lashing of the teacher, despondent to learn she was no longer in her "prime," is a comeuppance for the ages, which, nonetheless, might leave some in the audience pitying the teacher, who was, yes, an arrogant, cagey, Fascist sympathizer who claimed no responsibility for the lives she'd ruined. But she was also quite mad and should not have been in a position of authority.

Miss Brodie was ejected from her position by the head mistress (Celia Johnson) based on reports of misbehavior and grooming of her "girls" to be radical nonconformists, but she would not accept the board's decision. Rather she would appeal to the public, arguing that she was well-known and popular, and her students would defend her.

Of course, all of that was a facade, and Miss Brodie eventually folded, having been unmasked by someone she had trusted, simply because that person reflected the teacher's treachery back at her.

Megalopolis

 

Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis intrigues with its bold blending of Shakespeare and Fellini (part Julius Caesar and part Satyricon) and a host of visual homages to 1927's Metropolis and 1955's The Night of the Hunter and to the tableaux of Stanley Kubrick and Peter Greenaway. It is more of a feast for cinephiles than a satisfying meal for casual moviegoers.

Coppola wrote, directed and produced this "fable" about an architectural genius / master of time and space Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver) who has been contracted by the people of the future city New Rome (a remade/remodeled New York) to turn it into a model of sustainable, soul-enriching urban living, using not concrete and steel but a highly malleable material with properties that will last forever.

Catalina's vision is opposed by the city's mayor, Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who wants solutions to more immediate problems -- affordable housing being most pressing. They represent the eternal conflict between idealism and pragmatism.

Animosity between the two men extends back to Cicero's prosecution of Catalina on charges related to the drowning death of Catalina's wife, whose body subsequently went missing. Catalina was exonerated of her murder.

Catalina's efforts are underwritten by his aging uncle Crassus (Jon Voight), who is smitten by Catalina's mistress, a television reporter named Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza). Platinum eventually consorts with the old man and begins to plot his ruin.

Crassus, like King Lear, is surrounded by many nefarious underlings, most notably grandson Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf), whose unabashed greed and need for attention might sound familiar to some. Clodio (oh, the names in this picture!) is a scheming rabble-rouser trying to work both sides against the middle, and LaBeouf might deliver the most entertaining performance.

No epic is worthy of the name without a romantic subplot as counterpoint to the politics. Coppola invests a lot in the pairing of the indefatigable Driver with British beauty Nathalie Emmanuel, who plays the beloved daughter of Catalina's nemesis Cicero. (Cue "A Time for Us" from Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet [1968].)

The picture is graced with featured turns from Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Kathryn Hunter and Dustin Hoffman.

Yes, Megalopolis is crammed full of acting notables and notions, stunning images and ideas, but, as others have said, it lacks true coherence. It's an expressive venture from a master of the cinematic arts that will have audience's talking more about HOW the movie was made more than what it MEANS.

Speak No Evil (2024)

 

Speak No Evil is James Watkins' remake of the Danish psycho-horror film of the same name from 2022. If one were to strip away the narrative clunkiness, one would find the new picture celebrates the power of existential threat to restore the tattered fabric of family life. The original picture was a much bleaker story.

Watkins' picture is about the perils of a small family -- Ben Dalton (Scott McNairy), wife Louise (Mackenzie Davis) and daughter Agnes (Alex West Lexler) -- who are visiting Paddy (James McAvoy), wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi) and mute son Ant (Dan Hough) at their remote farmhouse in England after becoming fast friends while vacationing in Italy. (Who does that?) 

When they arrive from their London flat, the Daltons quickly discover Paddy is a boundaries-obliterator -- stepping all over Louise's sensibilities as a vegetarian and poking at Ben's apparent insecurities as a cuckolded beta. 

As events unfold, Paddy becomes increasingly insinuating and Ciara more intrusive, much to Louise's chagrin (Davis is a particularly potent force here). Eventually Agnes, between panic attacks and emotional meltdowns, discovers the non-speaking Ant holds the key to his family's weirdness.

Even if one were to give in to the bottomless gullibility that is the setting for Watkins' version of the Danish creep out, one might still be frustrated by the bone-headedness on display -- especially that of Ben, a master of indecision and self-pity. 

To be fair, some of Ben and Louise's "unspeakably" bad choices can be attributed to the couple's emotional distancing from each other and 12-year-old Agnes's arrested development. To wit a stuffed support bunny rabbit plays an important role in this tale.

In the end, Watkins' Speak No Evil is a tour de force for the sneering, scenery-chewing McAvoy's maniacal Paddy, a psychotic Daddy Dearest candidate, for sure. The movie is a messy mash up of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf's toxic passive-aggressiveness and Straw Dogs' bloody aggressive-aggressiveness. But it's occasionally an entertaining one-off mess.

Didi (2024)

 

Celebrated Taiwanese American director Sean Wang's first feature, Dìdi, is his personal reflection on a familiar cinematic theme -- budding-teen-ager angst -- set against an Asian immigrant backdrop of cultural identity and assimilation in Fremont, California. Seventeen-year-old Izaac Wang plays Sean's alter ego, Chris, called "Wang-Wang" by his "friends," "Dìdi" by his mother and grandmother (Joan Chen and Zhang Li Hua, respectively), and all manner of vile creature by sister Vivian (Shirley Chen). It's 2008, and we see the somber, hooded Chris at the family table where the hectoring is endless and at school where a different sort of hectoring goes on. He is dreading the transition to high school, even though mates Faud (Raul Dial) and Soup (Aaron Chang), who turned junior high into their own miscreant playground, are eager to make the move and expand their territory. The film does not connect the emotional and psychological dots that make up Chris's profile, leaving the audience to weigh how much an absent father and bickering elders contribute to the kid's painful lack of confidence. The move to college that sister Vivian is preparing for seems remote and entrance examinations pointless. Chris finds some joy through his video camera and posts shaky scenes of his friends' stunts on YouTube. When he sees a group of boys skating, a skill he has yet to master even though he carries his board around with him, he poses as a "filmer" and agrees to shoot some scenes for them so that they can get sponsors. The scheme doesn't work out and hard lessons are learned. Chris Wang's drive to be accepted is overshadowed by a more basic need -- to be seen, which is ironic considering how often he hides from others. When Dìdi feels shame, he disappears, erasing the evidence of his existence, be it YouTube videos or chatroom exchanges. At 30, Sean Wang captures the raging, impulsive, profane swagger of early adolescence, when high school freshmen are flex, fight or fondle 24/7. We cringe for young Chris's missteps but a scene between him and his mother paints in some important details and the picture's last frame glows with hope.