Two new films seem to be in dialogue: In The Substance, Demi Moore is a Hollywood star chasing eternal youth. The dark comedy A Different Man centers on a New Yorker with a rare genetic condition.
iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/nx-s1-5120605/g-s1-24735" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">Sometimes, by strange coincidence, two movies open the same week that don’t just have a thing or two in common; they’re so locked into the same themes and concepts that it’s as if they’re having a conversation with each other.
Elisabeth orders herself a Substance starter kit, the use of which has to be seen to be believed: Let’s just say it involves a lot of fluids, syringes and stitches, and by the end of it, Elisabeth finds herself in the body of a 20-something. Now played by Margaret Qualley, she soon becomes the talk of the town and even lands her old TV-host job. But there’s a big catch: Elisabeth must return to her original body at regular intervals so that her new body can rest. She’s one person juggling two codependent bodies — a balance that ultimately cannot be sustained.is mordantly funny. As an exercise in body horror, it’s memorably gruesome — especially the spectacular third act, which demands to be seen in a packed house.
If you question the decision to have a movie star wear prosthetics, the writer-director Aaron Schimberg questions it, too. He has structuredas a kind of thought experiment that rigorously interrogates its own premise. As Edward adopts a new identity, enjoying for the first time what it’s like to be successful and popular, the movie itself keeps shifting tones and genres; it plays like a mad-scientist thriller one minute and a vintage Woody Allen comedy the next.
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