Coralie Fargeat, Director of Demi Moore, Talks About the Film “The Substance”

Coralie Fargeat tried to warn everyone.

While the French filmmaker was preparing her latest film, The substanceShe wrote the script in its entirety, adding as much detail as possible, before submitting it to production partners. When casting, she had long discussions with her leads about why the extremes in the script, from nudity to blood, were necessary for the story. And when approaching financial backers, she was very clear about what the shoot would require, including hours and hours of prosthetic work that would require weeks of additional filming.

Yet when you make a film like The substancewhich will screen at midnight at the Toronto International Film Festival, Fargeat says: “No matter how specific you are on the page, no one really sees fully what you want to do and what you have in mind.”

The series follows Elisabeth Sparkle, a former award-winning actress turned celebrity fitness instructor who is forced to retire at the age of 50. Distraught, Elisabeth takes a mysterious drug that allows her to propagate (at the cost of considerable physical discomfort) a younger version of herself, and the two must figure out how to coexist.

With needles plunging like a swan into flesh and a third act climaxing with enough blood to make John Carpenter blush, The substance is exposure therapy for the sensitive and a feast for the body horror obsessed. Set in a hyper-pigmented Hollywood, The substance boldly – ​​and violently – tackles the internalized self-hatred of aging women struggling with idealized beauty standards.

Get The substance in theaters on September 20, shortly after the film opened in the Midnight section in Toronto, Fargeat embarked on a journey that ultimately included the lows of losing a major distributor and the highs of becoming the darling of Cannes.

Demi Moore, the film’s star, who has won awards for her performance, says: “Watching this movie, I could read it on the page and think, ‘OK, this could really work and be part of a real cultural shift, something that would have a real impact. Or, really, it could be a fucking disaster.’ And you know what? That’s what makes it interesting.”

Fargeat broke through with his first feature film, released in 2017 Revengea slow-burning suspense thriller about a woman who, after being raped and left for dead while on vacation with her married boyfriend, goes on a supremely satisfying killing spree, methodically tracking down her attackers and killing them in increasingly gruesome ways. The film premiered at Sundance to stellar reviews. It was distributed by Neon, quickly becoming a favorite among horror audiences.

After RevengeThe filmmaker began receiving scripts for her to direct, but nothing was working. “For me, the most important thing is creative freedom,” she says. Ready to tackle a bigger budget with an international cast, Fargeat wrote The substance on spec.

While Revenge was…