{"id":3842,"date":"2024-10-22T14:29:26","date_gmt":"2024-10-22T13:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3842"},"modified":"2024-10-22T14:29:26","modified_gmt":"2024-10-22T13:29:26","slug":"megalopolis-and-the-substance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2024\/10\/22\/megalopolis-and-the-substance\/","title":{"rendered":"Megalopolis and The Substance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Megalopolis<\/strong> need not detain us for very long. The story behind the story is vastly more interesting than what is on the screen. Genius filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, who once had a clear vision for how to turn Mario Puzo\u2019s pulpy best-seller into a towering work of cinematic iconography, who had already bankrupted himself once trying to reimaging how Hollywood worked in the 1980s, now liquidates a small fortune in order to make his dream project which has been gestating for decades. Sadly, the money men who refused to finance this one were dead right, as it isn\u2019t so much a story as an incredibly lengthy music video, in which random images are juxtaposed in the hope that something of meaning will emerge, but sadly it never does. Busily acting in at least five different films are Adam Driver (fine), Aubrey Plaza (dazzling), Shia LaBeouf (I mean, you know), Nathalie Emmanuel (vacant), Chloe Fineman (huh?) and Dustin Hoffman \u2013 who is not so much wasted as carelessly discarded. Avoid.<\/p>\n

Of far more interest is The Substance<\/strong> which gives us Demi Moore (able to play a stunning-looking 50-year-old at the age of 60, which is quite remarkable in itself) as fired TV aerobics star and one-time movie actor Elisabeth Sparkle. Desperate to cling on to youth, beauty and all the opportunities those allow, she experiments with The Substance, and with a suitably flagrant disregard for such trivialities as the conservation of mass, she splits open along her spine to reveal a younger, hotter, more Margaret Qualley-ish her. However, The Substance has rules, chiefly that Elisabeth\u2019s consciousness must switch from body-to-body every seven days \u2013 no exceptions. But Qualley has far more fun than Moore, so this isn\u2019t easy to sustain.<\/p>\n

It’s vital to understand what writer\/director Coralie Fargeat cares about and what she doesn\u2019t to appreciate this film. Qualley reinvents herself as \u201cSue\u201d and strolls back into her old job, which Dennis Quaid\u2019s revolting producer is only too happy to give her. Consider that she has no references, no agent, no bank account, no social security number, not even a last name. Even given that we swallow the magical powers of The Substance (and Elisabeth\u2019s ease with following the very skimpy instructions), what follows is completely impossible. But who could give two shits about any of that when we have the gleeful fun of watching the older Elisabeth\u2019s body progressively falling to pieces as the younger version saps more and more of her life essence away \u2013 to say nothing of that completely preposterous grand guignol ending?<\/p>\n

What Fargeat does care about is tactility. Everything in this movie, from clothing to medical equipment to flesh to food \u2013 especially food \u2013 squishes and oozes and rustles and scrapes. From the opening shots, her camera comes right into pore level on the actors\u2019 faces, and the early scene of Quaid slurping down shrimp does something to prepare the ground for the body horror that\u2019s to come \u2013 although nothing can really prepare you for the onslaught of the film\u2019s final act.<\/p>\n

Moore and Qualley are tremendous, but amongst all of this bravura splatter-gore, it\u2019s two quieter moments that stick with me. The opening overhead shot is a masterpiece of visual storytelling, and the extended sequence of Moore being unable to leave her apartment for her date with an old school friend is utterly devastating. Although both this and Megalopolis<\/em> look like films of which you could say similar things \u2013 crazy, bonkers, you\u2019ve never seen anything like it, etc. \u2013 the difference is that Coppola\u2019s film feels like wild horses rode through the screenplay destroying everything in their path, whereas for all its batshit excesses, Fargeat\u2019s film always knows exactly what it wants to be and exactly what it\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n

My only criticism is shouldn\u2019t \u201cElisa-sue\u201d have been \u201cEli-sue-beth\u201d instead?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Megalopolis need not detain us for very long. The story behind the story is vastly more interesting than what is on the screen. Genius filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, who once had a clear vision for how to turn Mario Puzo\u2019s pulpy best-seller into a towering work of cinematic iconography, who had already bankrupted himself once […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[25],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-3842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-the-cinema","tag-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-ZY","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3842"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3843,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3842\/revisions\/3843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}