Demi Moore returns to film with a shocker in 'The Substance'

With Demi Moore, you never know what the next role might be. She's been in more than 60 productions over the course of 40 years as an actress, and she hasn't retired yet.

Photo: The Substance / Cannes Film Festival

In recent years, the feeling may have been that she retired from film and TV - at least for a while. And yet, she never stopped working.

Perhaps because of her relative invisibility, her latest role comes with a sense of resurgence; especially because it has had a notable impact on those who have seen it.

In 'The Substance', the latest work by French director Coralie Fargeat (l), Demi Moore takes her character to the extreme.

In this story, Demi Moore plays a fitness show host who, upon turning 50, uses a strange substance that allows her to become a younger, more attractive version of herself.

In this case, that younger and more attractive version of herself is Margaret Qualley, one of today's rising Hollywood actresses.

For Demi Moore, 'The Substance' allows her to play an extreme role. Several scenes are so complicated and uncomfortable to watch that viewers have stated they will never forget them.

Without saying too much, the scene in which Moore's character applies the infamous substance, has plenty of needles, tubes, vials, blood, and gunshots. It is so specific that it is impossible not to feel more than a shiver in the process.

Photo: The Substance / Cannes Film Festival

Seeing how Margaret Qualley emerges from Demi Moore's spine and crawls towards her own existence among fluids of all kinds, and knowing that this is not even the most extreme scene in the film, testifies to the visual spectacle of Coralie Fargeat's movie.

Photo: The Substance / Cannes Film Festival

The film denounces the stereotypes that govern the perception of women on television and the beauty canons established by male scrutiny. Its tone is taken to a much rougher terrain than what we are used to.

It is shocking to see Demi Moore in that position. Perhaps for that reason, it is much more satisfying to see the body terror to which she subjects her own character.

Her Elisabeth Sparkle is one of those characters that define a career. It highlights what she has done previously, and, over time, it may become a cult element of her work - if perhaps it isn't already so.

'The Substance' premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2024 and will be in US theaters in September this year.

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