Certainly lives up to its reputation as a riotous body horror film. Coralie Fargeat uses the high concept of Elisabeth an aging actress finding herself out the outside of an image obsessed industry that she becomes desperate enough to use a shady drug in order to began some youthfulness. In this case spawning a younger and better version of herself right from her own back. Fargeat makes that process bloody, gross and painful which makes the desperation of Elisabeth feel all the more palpable. Of what she is willing to put herself through and keep doing just to have a version of herself out there in the world. Fargeat so often trains her camera on the bodies of the two actresses. Using such glossy lightening and optimal camera placement to let Sue appear to be a goddess and really let us feel the focus and obsession about her body. All the quick editing of close-ups on her body which doesn't allow a single frame that doesn't look embronzed. While Fargeat isn't intentionally unflattering with Elisabeth, she does use more of a naturalistic technique letting the images of her body fall where it may. Without any camera tricks, lighting enhancements or editing to shift through the idea images. And as Elisabeth get more recognition about the unbalanced way the world looks at the both of them and how it has tossed her aside it just festers as self-hatred. Which Fargeat has grow with a sharpening of a horror aesthetic with dark shadows lingering over things and a certain mania in the framing. And things become increasingly more unhinged in it's body horror elements. With a medical procedure to tie them together as they switch who is the cognitive one. Meanwhile Sue's world has such a slick look, almost like a music video, which is full of glamor and fun. It is quite wild to witness the contrasts furthering the sense of cruelty of a society that favors youth to such a degree that it causes so much psychological turmoil in even the most beautiful of people.

All of that is pretty potent. But I think Fargeat finds another gear when it comes to the notion, which the voice on the other end of the phone line keeps saying, that Sue and Elisabeth are the same person. And how neither can reconcile that. Sue can't even phantom not being youthful and willingly siphons the life essence of Elisabeth in order to sustain herself. All the while being so short sighted that she is going to run into a point where it is not sustainable but being so young and reckless she doesn't care. Something that always happens with youth where they willingly do things or live their lives in a manner which will have negative impacts on themselves further down the line. But that older person they will inevitable turn into is so far removed from them that they take from their future for enjoyment in their youthful present. And there is a degree of parallels you can feel with Elisabeth which most likely got her here in the first place. Focusing on a career which is predicated on looks and living fast while partying it up instead of building something sustainable. Where she is desperate to take the substance to get some relieve. Elisabeth meanwhile does see herself in Sue but knowing that she was so far away what she used to be just exacerbates her insecurities and causes her to channel the anger at what she used to be inwards. To the point where she can't reconcile them truly being the same person. I think having this other dynamic makes Fargeat's film something that has a lot on it's mind other than just shock and gore. Or even surface level concepts about an image based culture. But has something much more interesting and thoughtful under all the blood and skin. It is a really great and dynamic script from Fargeat to be true to the body horror elements while still have quite a bit to take away from it. Because Fargeat uses some quite elegant imagery to get across ideas here. Instead of a long prologue or many different expository scenes it opens with an image of a Hollywood star for Elisabeth from a fixed point of view and uses how the world interacts with it and how it falls into disrepair track the entire career of Elisabeth. To understand her rise and fall in pure imagery. Or a long red hallway in the studio which is filled with posters of all Elisabeth's accomplishments that shows such a successful career. While the same hallway only has two posters for Sue. And yet one has all the confidence and the world at her feet while the other is on their way out and defeated.

At least Fargeat until the last act. Things ramp up even further with a bonkers 30 minutes or so where things become even more insane and gory. It is some ways a natural progression of the ideas the film was building towards. And you would expect escalation given how wild it had been up to then. But Fargeat shifts things to be much more for shock and cheap thrills. The film ends up gorging itself on the body horror elements always trying to up the provocation. And while it allows the fantastic make-up work to take even more focus creating things that haunt your dreams, it also makes the more thoughtful ideology which was always peculating starts to become deluded. Especially since while Fargeat uses a lot of elegant imagery to get various ideas across she forces them all to come to a head one after another at the end which drags it out too. But it all ends up being a hell of a showcase for Demi Moore. It is one of those times where it is such perfect casting the way her career folds into Elisabeth's in some ways. But yet it also offers up Moore a prime role she can really sink her teeth into which she hasn't gotten for years. And she really goes for it here diving into the role and playing all the over the top body horror elements with total fearlessness. But yet always providing a sense of the human frailty that comes with getting older and having to reckon your prime has slipped away. It is a forceful yet sensitive performance. And Margaret Qualley is just as perfectly cast as the younger side of the coin given how her career has rocketed in recent years and is in many ways a mirror version of Moore's when she was her age. Qualley is just as fearless leaping into every scene with a youthful gusto that you feel intoxicated by. Even while you see all the folly of her youthful ignorance. You just can't ignore that seductive youth.