\n<\/p>\n
Maybe \u201cMegalopolis\u201d was just an amuse-bouche.<\/p>\n
After Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s $120 million movie polarized audiences<\/a> during the first week of the Cannes Film Festival, the big swings have continued with \u201cThe Substance\u201d and \u201cEmilia P\u00e9rez,\u201d two much-discussed films that are either stone-cold classics or total fiascos depending on whom you talk to here.<\/p>\n But at a festival where a dozen new movies arrive every day and each title is in danger of being overshadowed, there\u2019s nothing more effective than causing a commotion.<\/p>\n The gory horror-comedy \u201cThe Substance\u201d casts Demi Moore as Elizabeth Sparkle, an Oscar-winning actress who, as she ages, can find no better work than hosting an aerobics program. Even that gig is in danger thanks to an unscrupulous network executive (Dennis Quaid) who\u2019s dead set on replacing Sparkle with someone younger and hotter. Backed into a corner, Sparkle decides to inject herself with the Substance, a mysterious fluid that promises a path to rejuvenation.<\/p>\n But this procedure goes several steps beyond Botox and fillers. After taking the Substance, Sparkle\u2019s younger self (Margaret Qualley) emerges painfully from her body and sets about reclaiming the aerobics gig that the network yanked away. The only catch is that Sparkle\u2019s younger and older selves must trade off every week, agreeing to hibernate while the other one goes out on the town. Failure to maintain that balance could have gruesome effects on their bodies, and it isn\u2019t long before this peaceful trade-off becomes an increasingly disfiguring tug of war.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe Substance,\u201d directed by Coralie Fargeat, offers plenty to talk about, from Moore\u2019s go-for-broke, bare-it-all performance to an outrageous finale that consistently pushes the line on gross-out gore. But the most spirited discussions at Cannes are over whether the movie is trenchant or skin-deep. David Ehrlich of IndieWire praised it<\/a> as the best of the fest, but several people I\u2019ve spoken to were positively angry about having watched it. Maybe any reaction is the right one when it comes to something so gleefully provocative: In a post online, the writer Iana Murray called<\/a> the film \u201cshallow\u201d and \u201cpainfully unsubtle\u201d but added, \u201ci had a hell of a time though why lie.\u201d<\/p>\n