The Substance
Story Stream
Shame, Sex, and the Female Body February 28, 2025
“The particular greatness of movies,” Pauline Kael once wrote, is the power to connect with us “emotionally … in spite of our thinking selves.”I’m never going to be swept away by films that are treatises, feminist or otherwise. Tell me a good story w...
The Hero and other Cultural Characters January 24, 2025
One of my most enduring memories from my ten years traveling the US was being in a dive bar somewhere in Ohio when a woman got all upset that her man had went into the bathroom, locked it, and that was half hour ago and he wasn't answering and he had...
The Winners and Losers of the 2025 Oscar Nominations January 24, 2025
The lead-up to the 97th Academy Awards has been anything but ordinary. Last week, the Oscar nominations were delayed on account of the devastating wildfires across Los Angeles. “We will get through this together and bring a sense of healing to our gl...
‘The Substance’ Is One of the Best Food Movies in Years January 24, 2025
Not long after Elisabeth Sparkle’s 50th birthday, her boss, a boor named Harvey, delivers some bad news to her over a plate of shrimp: He’s giving her the pink slip. An Oscar-winning actress, Elisabeth (Demi Moore) has spent the second chapter of her...
High and Dry January 24, 2025
It’s dusk on the first night of Bonnaroo, and the lotus-eaters are all around us. There are candy flippers in white Moon Boots with impressively lacquered eyelashes, and a portly man with a Gandalf beard who’s magnanimously handing out shot glasses. ...
How the Academy Awards Adapted to Catastrophe January 24, 2025
Until two weeks ago, Oscar pundits were describing this awards season as “weird.” Unlike last year’s slate, dominated by Barbenheimer, the new crop of contenders had been thinned out by the actors’ and writers’ strikes, leaving room for such polarizi...
The New Semantics of the Kafkaesque January 15, 2025
In conversation with a friend who is well versed in neologism, the discussion often returns to Franz Kafka. Trace the roots of any word back far enough and you’ll find historical context largely removed from contemporary meaning, but Franz Kafka and ...
Real Dolls November 12, 2024
AS A PAEAN to body horror, Coralie Fargeat’s 2024 MUBI film The Substance savors the conventions of the genre. It’s a movie made for big-screen viewing, satisfyingly evoking revulsion with shots of half-chewed food and smeared makeup as much as with ...
The Many Forms of Rachel Cusk November 04, 2024
To judge by the critical response, Rachel Cusk’s new novel has left readers feeling betrayed. The nature of the betrayal depended upon what aspect of her work the critic once esteemed. For Dwight Garner of the New York Times, reviewing Parade meant r...
All Hail the New Flesh November 01, 2024
Watching writer-director Coralie Fargeat’s new film The Substance, I couldn’t decide whether it was supposed to be a body-horror movie or a deliciously funny All About Eve catfight about an ageing star (Demi Moore) who is outraged to discover that sh...
‘The Substance’ Is One of the Best Food Movies in Years October 01, 2024
Not long after Elisabeth Sparkle’s 50th birthday, her boss, a boor named Harvey, delivers some bad news to her over a plate of shrimp: He’s giving her the pink slip. An Oscar-winning actress, Elisabeth (Demi Moore) has spent the second chapter of her...
'The Substance' Lacks Any September 24, 2024
When I read back in the spring that Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance was the most divisive movie at Cannes—it got the festival’s longest standing ovation (11 minutes) and the award for best screenplay, while also occasioning multiple midscreening walk...
Language and Leonard Michaels September 05, 2024
All that great writing, trapped in mediocre books! —Elif BatumanCatachresis leads to anthropophagy. —David Bentley HartOrdinary people have a right to feel harassed when their language is criticized. We have grammar school for that kind of thing afte...
Demi Moore’s Glorious Return September 04, 2024
“I’m warning you: She loves to dominate a teddy bear,” Demi Moore says as her teacup Chihuahua, Pilaf, toddles into the room. Moore, perched on a kitchen stool in her Los Angeles home, watches her dog with a sly smile. “You’re going to see some humpi...
