While speaking at the French premiere of Coralie Fargeat’s bloody satire The Substance, Demi Moore likened the film to the highly contentious presidential election playing out in the United States.
“America is built on Puritans, religious fanatics, and criminals,” said Moore, according to Variety. “[And] you’re kind of seeing [as much] in our election right now.”
The actress touched on how sexuality is still “taboo” in America, where there is “a lot of fear” about the body. “It never made sense why we can celebrate the body in art, but fear it in cinema,” she continued, explaining that Fargeat aimed to break down those taboos by bringing them into the light.
“When we choose to hide ourselves, when we fear being seen, we create isolation,” said Moore. “There is greater liberation when you are willing to allow others to see you in all the parts of you, not just the parts that you want them see.”
She added that in “being someone of a certain age,” she found value in being “willing to be seen with flaws, with imperfections.” The actress also touched on the “harshness” and “violence” we can direct towards ourselves, and how exploring those feelings pushed her beyond her comfort zone.
Moore said that when asked if a man could have directed the film, she said that “maybe a man could, but I don’t think a man could have written [it].”
The star applauded Fargeat’s “visual style, her symbolic style” and her unique use of sound throughout the movie. Moore added: “I want us to quit being surprised [about women’s potential].”
“The film is totally personal,” Fargeat later told Variety. “It is really what I have lived my own life regarding body image and the expectations of what it is to be a good woman, what you have to look like and how you have to behave. So, yeah, it’s a very personal journey about how this has impacted my whole being.”
A Rolling Stone review of the The Substance, called it “Moore’s extraordinary, best-of-career performance.” Film critic David Fear said the “riff on The Picture of Dorian Gray goes ballistic in the best possible way,” and said it was a “climactic bloodbath that puts The Shining‘s plasma-gushing elevator to shame.”
