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Midweek Movie Free Talk
Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
Late to the party, but I finally saw The Substance and with pretty high expectations as it seems like everywhere I looked, people were giving it raving reviews and recommendations. It didn't quite live up to that, but still one heck of a crazy unique film. I tend to prefer movies that present their themes with subtlety, and it would it be an understatement to just say this does the opposite. It literally screams its themes with the dial turned to 11 all the way through. When it is done with such confidence and impenitence, I can totally respect that choice.
As great and as well executed the narrative is, it was also a little predictable and I was at times just waiting for the story to follow its natural cause. We get the premise and the setup for The Substance pretty quickly, and from there on you know that all the presented rules will get broken. It mostly writes itself from the start. At least until the ending where it took an even wilder left turn and somehow went from having the dial already at 11 and cranking it to 22.
I applaud the movies themes and it is admirable in every way how it is handled. But it didn't instill much pondering or thoughts for me, as the point about beauty standards and Hollywood are pretty clear from the start. In that way it was a similar experience as Civil War. A great experience in the theater, but just the next day it was clear that it really wasn't that deep and not a film I will keep thinking about that much.