If Demi Moore scores an Oscar nom for going all body horror in The Substance…fine. But it’ll be one of those gold-watch, career tribute deals…a gesture that says “40 years, Demi!…we’ve all loved you since your Brat Pack heyday (About Last Night, St. Elmo’s Fire) and your ‘90s heyday (Ghost, Striptease, Indecent Proposal, G.I. Jane) and here you still are,” etc.
The Substance is basically a slick, David Cronenberg-ian, anti-male-asshole social satire, and it doesn’t ask Moore to do much more than deliver extreme reactions to the extreme things that happen more and more to her body. It’s not a heart-and-soul thing — it’s a freak-out thing.
Calm down, cut the shit, cool the hyperbole.
