The latest movie releases include The Substance, A Different Man, In the Summers, and The Falling Star. Weighing in are Alonso Duralde and Dave White, film critics and co-hosts of the movie podcast Linoleum Knife.
The Substance
This follows an aging actress who takes a new drug that allows her to create a better self. The cast includes Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and Dennis Quaid.
White: “As a cinematic experience, this is a big splash of hard, glossy, bulletproof glamor turned rancid. The cinematography reminds me of 90s photos by David LaChapelle. Everything glows here … but then you get to the viscera, which also glows whether you like that idea or not.
… As a satirist, [director] Coralie Fargeat carries a sledgehammer. So if it's subtlety you're looking for, then you will go somewhere else. It's specifically about what it means to be perceived as old and sexually unappealing for women who are always subjected to this with far more miserable scrutiny. And Demi Moore's performance is like nothing you've ever seen her do or be on-screen before. I'll just say this: It's really gross. And if you like that and you think that's fun, then you will love every moment of this.”
Duralde: “The satire is pretty direct, but as I've discovered in talking to women about this film, this is very much a female gaze, body horror movie that, yes, it is about how the industry has expectations and possible expectations of women and youth and beauty. But it's also very relatable on just women who even aren't in the industry. There's this amazing sequence where Demi Moore is going out on a date with a guy that she went to high school with, who still thinks that she's incredibly glamorous, even though everybody in the industry is telling her that she's over the hill. And the way that she looks at herself in the mirror and critiques the way what's looking back at her, and keeps changing this outfit, and changing the makeup, and trying to come up with something that she feels comfortable with and never allowing herself to be comfortable with that image is, apparently for a lot of women, a very relatable moment.”
A Different Man
Sebastian Stan plays a New Yorker who undergoes an intensive facial reconstructive surgery. But his new face doesn’t lead to the dream he imagined, and he becomes obsessed with an actor whose play is based on his old life.
White: “I ping-ponged back and forth while I watched it, thinking, ‘Is this movie deep or just dour and a lot of just thumping anxiety?’ And in my opinion, [it has] an insistence on explaining itself with a weird regularity. It stops to tell you what to think about what's happening on-screen. And I find that irritating.”
In the Summers
This focuses on the fraught relationship between a father and his children. Their story is told over four summers when they visit him.
White: “This story has several moving parts. The father who tries hard but can't keep it together. It's about addiction. It's about a queer adolescent finding their way. It's about neglect and sorrow and kids not getting enough of what their parents should give. And it's all done with a very light touch. It's fully composed and visually accomplished. It shows you so much without having to underline it all the time.
I was particularly pleased by the location setting. I personally spent a good chunk of my childhood in semi-rural New Mexico and spaces that have an easy ability to communicate loneliness and isolation. You get all of it without having to be beaten over the head with the messages of family love that are also quite messy and heartbreaking. It is a wonderful film.”
Duralde: “There are three sets of these daughters who flow seamlessly. You absolutely believe that these performers grow into the older versions of themselves. And to see them trying to hang on to this relationship with their father, and realizing what the limitations of that relationship is going to be — is utterly heartbreaking. They really nail the tone of just the subtle interactions, the little moments of triumph, the little disappointments that add up. This is a devastating and beautiful film.”
The Falling Star
In this dark, slapstick comedy from Belgium, a one-armed vigilante tracks down a former activist with a dark history. But the target’s doppelganger steps in.
White: “It's very firmly planted in the noir tradition. But it's an offshoot of their own invention, because it is shot through this visually intense color. And is 100% a comedy, all of it performed by a cast of people whose every move is intricately choreographed. It's part dance, part mime, part silent film, physical comedy. They all come from this background of theater and circus. So everything is impeccably staged and planned out. The ways that people move in this movie are wildly acrobatic and always surprising.”
Duralde: “The plot is so not the point here. It is really more just about these amazing physical, geometric creations that the movie is doing. But there is this undercurrent of melancholy. The doppelganger and the private detective have this shared tragedy in their past, so it's juggling a lot of tones in a beautifully absurdist way, and it all works.”