Demi Moore winning a Best Comedy/Musical Actress Golden Globe award was the only heart moment during last Sunday’s GG broadcast. She is therefore the only presumed Best Actress nominee with a compelling narrative, the handcicappers are all saying. But how genuine was the story that Moore recited?

“Thirty years ago, I had a producer tell me that I was a ‘popcorn actress,’ and at that time, I [took] that to mean that…I could do movies that were successful and made a lot of money, but that I couldn’t be acknowledged, and I bought in and I believed that. That corroded me over time, to the point where I thought a few years ago that maybe this was it, maybe I was complete, maybe I had done what I was supposed to do.

“And [just] as I was at kind of a low point, I had this magical, bold, courageous, out-of-the-box, absolutely bonkers script come across my desk called The Substance. And the universe told me that ‘you’re not done.’”

Except over the last 40 years Moore wasn’t pushed and bullied into a mainstream megaplex career, which is what that producer meant when he used the term “popcorn.” I’ve never read or heard that she tried to prove her arthouse mettle by appearing in edgy Sundance films, and as far as I know she wasn’t kept down and put in a confining box by big, bad studio execs — she went for big, attention-getting, high-paying roles in mainstream films, and she became rich and famous and lived a very flush life. She chose this path while the choosing was good.

She did Brat Pack roles, sexy hottie parts, romantic relationship roles, femme fatale roles…Blame It on Rio, St. Elmo’s Fire, About Last Night…, Ghost, A Few Good Men, Indecent Proposal, Disclosure, Striptease, The Scarlet Letter, The Juror, G.I. Jane. True, she played a small part in the arthousey Margin Call but that was 14 years ago after her career flame had cooled. And last year she did Feud: Capote vs. The Swans.

In short, Moore never tried to be in a critically-approved, Cannes-worthy, outside-the-box feminist statement film, and certainly not in a body-horror film. She only took the lead in The Substance when she calculated that she’d aged out (duhhh) and a role like this was her only likely shot at prominence, just like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford signed up for hag horror in the ’60s.

Moore played it smart, and the gamble has obviously paid off. Coralie Fargeat knew how to make a David Cronenberg film, although The Subtance ie not an emotional, soul-baring film…far from it.

Moore’s Elizabeth Sparkle character is basically a scream queen role…except she doesn’t scream. It’s essentially about ghastly stuff that happens to the poor woman because she’s desperate to stay in the game. It’s a film driven by feminist smirk-rage about a system rigged by exploitive male assholes, and yet a system that just about every Type-A woman has bought into and tried to compete in. Including Demi Moore herself.

It’s not about Moore reaching into her soul and delivering the performance of her life, but about Moore playing a victim…a desperate character reacting to horrific things that are happening to her. The Substance never strays from that path.

Posted last September:

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 and your ‘90s heyday and here you still are,” etc.

The Substance is basically a slick, David Cronenberg-ian 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.

@bobbydotube Substance starring Demi Moore possibly the worst movie I’ve ever seen in my life! It made absolutely no sense whats so ever! Waste of money and time on top of that? Nobody knew who Debbie Moore was and after this movie, I wish I didn’t know her either you should be ashamed of yourself, Demi Moore.! ##substance##demimoore##worstmovieever ♬ original sound – Bobby DoTube