Transformation, Doppelgängers, and Hyperfixation on the Body: Two Films to See This October

Transformation, reincarnation, augmentation, rejuvenation … Are we simply entering Halloween season, or is something more sinister lurking in the shadows? Something we’ve long tried to keep at bay? This month’s feature is a Halloween special double bill, spotlighting two movies which hold up to us a concave mirror by exploring our hyperfixation with the body, its many faces and iterations, how we inhabit it, and what it reveals about us. Can we truly separate body from soul? After a transformation, can we still recognize ourselves? Is self-optimisation always a good idea? These are some of the questions both A Different Man and The Substance grapple with.  

These films are stylistically linked by their mix of tragedy and dark humour, blending body horror, grotesque imagery, prosthetics and 80s aesthetics, while asking us to consider something more “serious”. It is debatable whether the message always lands in a serious fashion, but, upon seeing them, I felt like a shift had happened; not quite a transformation, but having scratched an itch I wasn’t sure I needed to scratch.

The Substance

Coralie Fargeat’s second feature, The Substance, solidifies Demi Moore’s status as an actress with a boundless, ever-evolving range. Meanwhile, Margaret Qualley shines in her biggest role to date. The film follows Elizabeth Sparkle (Moore), an ageing Oscar-winning actress desperately clinging to relevance. From the outset, we’re in for a ride: Elizabeth’s journey begins with a car crash after she sees her giant face being literally peeled off a billboard – a cruel metaphor for her fading stardom.

In the hospital, she learns of a revolutionary treatment, ominously named “The Substance,” which promises to “change her life.” Rather than merely reversing the clock, the treatment gives birth to a new, younger self – Sue (Qualley) – who emerges from Elizabeth’s spine like a grotesque, fully-formed and super sexy twin. As Elizabeth and Sue lead separate lives, we witness a sharp contrast between the decaying, disillusioned actress and her youthful, shiny doppelgänger. The irony is painfully clear: Elizabeth, the “matrix,” doesn’t reap the rewards of Sue’s newfound vitality but instead deteriorates rapidly, her body crumbling faster than before – which gets exacerbated through the use of prosthetics.

Aesthetically, this is a fun – if disturbing – experiment. Fargeat toys with the camera in a voyeuristic dance, glorifying Sue’s sexualized, youthful body – she is supple, toned, perky – while cruelly depreciating Elizabeth’s form. It’s the opposite of subtle: the lights are too much, the sounds are too loud and too crisp, the characters’ too obvious: it’s garish and grotesque (and the third act is fully bananas).

The Substance certainly explores our fixation for unattainable beauty standards – especially poignant in a post-Ozempic world where youth and appearance are increasingly commodified – and evokes the saturated, high-octane visuals of films like Neon Demon and Black Swan, blending these with the timeless horrors of Frankenstein and The Shining. 

Conceptually, however, it’s a Dorian Gray bargain: beauty equals a higher moral ground and ageing is a sin. And frankly, it’s hard to ignore the sense of internalised misogyny simmering beneath the surface: a part of me left the cinema feeling that what I just watched was a little depressing. Do we really need more content emphasising how a woman’s worth is doomed to taper off as the years go by? 

A Different Man

Aaron Shimberg’s A Different Man has been dubbed as “The Substance for boys,” and while the comparison holds, the film is far more elusive. It tells the story of Edward, an aspiring actor living in Manhattan, who undergoes a mysterious procedure and wakes up with the face of actor Sebastian Stan. Before his transformation, Edward navigated the world in a constant state of apology, shrinking himself to accommodate the cruelty and disdain of others. Shimberg uses the urban landscape of Manhattan to amplify this sense of suffocation – Edward is jostled in crowds, dismissed by strangers, and even mocked in his own home, where from a leaky ceiling a rotting black hole grows larger as the film progresses.

After his transformation, Edward fakes his own death and reinvents himself (hilariously) as “Guy”: a suave, confident real estate salesman whose success is buoyed by his new good looks. But this newfound confidence is fleeting, unravelling when he reconnects with his old neighbour, Ingrid (Reinate Reinsve from The Worst Person in the World), the only person who had shown him kindness when he was still his former self. She’s directing a play based on their friendship, titled Edward, and Guy secures the lead role – ironically donning prosthetics to replicate his old face. Here the film goes, annoyingly, a little meta, as the play seems to resemble Ed/Guy’s life trajectory. But Shimberg reins it in by getting Guy quickly upstaged (and then subsequently fired) by the arrival of his doppelgänger. Oswald (Adam Pearson), who is affected by neurofibromatosis, swoops in commanding attention with an irresistible British accent and flamboyant shirts, winning both the role and the girl (Ingrid) and leaving Guy spiralling.

Like in The Substance, the movie illustrates a Faustian / Dorian Gray-ish bargain and shows how chasing beauty and youth at all costs can be annihilating; but differs too as Shimberg turns this premise right on its head through Oswald, a character whose success defies the disfigured equals bad / doomed / sad  axiom.

Guy’s inability to reconcile his old and new selves leads to his undoing – he is haunted by his decision to “kill” Ed, while the people around him seem determined to exploit (or celebrate?) the memory of his former self. Does he even have a right to be Ed? Are they still the same person, now that he has a brand new face? 

The arrival of Oswald, who has fully embraced his appearance and exudes confidence, further underscores the film’s message (perhaps a little cheesy, but important): that true transformation begins with self-acceptance. And that Oswald represents everything Ed could have been if only he’d loved his own face. 

Shimberg’s dark comedy is not perfect – by the end, the layers are a little too many – but it hits hard. Delightfully offbeat, filled with dialogues that are off-kilter, characters that behave eccentrically, and a plot that twists and unravels as unpredictably as Guy’s psyche, A Different Man challenges the viewer’s notion of monstrosity and invites us to consider the difference between empathy and pity, self-deception and self-acceptance.

Maddalena Vatti is a literary scout and freelance writer based in London. Her writing has appeared on Review 31, Lit Hub, Il Tascabile and other magazines. Header image: from The Substance, courtesy of MUBI.