THE SUBSTANCE 2024

Spoiler Alert. This is a critical essay, not a review, so plot points will be revealed for discussion purposes.

Have you ever come across one of those hysterical clickbait links with a headline screaming, “You’ll be shocked to see what (insert any celebrity ...99% of the time, a woman) looks like today!” only to discover that the person has simply aged naturally?

Or maybe you've noticed that—while the posting of heavily filtered, augmented, and body-tuned selfies is nothing new—they all now seem to be aiming for the same standardized mannequin aesthetic.

ALL ABOUT EVE (1950)

Or you may have seen the male fitness influencer (who stays mum about his secret cycle of HGH injections) who cloaks run-of-the-mill narcissism in the aspirational rhetoric of discipline and self-mastery. Employing aggressive Alpha language (fight, power, winning, conquer pain), it all feels like obvious compensation for an underlying unease with what might be perceived as a “socially feminine” preoccupation with one's looks. 

And then, perhaps you’ve had the misfortune of encountering the AI artwork of a “creator” who wants to share with you his/her depiction of the ideal in female beauty: Which somehow ALWAYS means a vacantly staring white woman with the exaggerated eyes and lips of a Bratz doll and a body of Jessica Rabbit cartoon proportions.

VEEP- 2019

The most successful form of oppression is when
you get the marginalized to enforce their own subjugation

Even my citing these examples reflects the hegemony of body politics that we all perpetuate, participate in, and endure. Underscoring how, as a society, we continue to intrude upon the personal, private domain of others (our bodies are our own and no one else’s business) by asserting that we all, collectively, have some kind of say in the matter. Consequently, our bodies and physical appearance come to significantly influence our experience of the world, our self-esteem, and in far too many cases, our mental health. 

Where once fashion magazines and advertising were the primary suppliers of unrealistic beauty norms,  now, selfie-culture (with its "take 500 photos to get the ideal one to post" standards of phone-filter perfection) makes sure that every moment of every day, we're bombarded with images of how we think we're supposed to look.  

In The Substance, French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat takes a laceratingly frank look at bodies- our own and the bodies of others- and our relationship with them. Using vivid imagery and startling symbolism, Fargeat confronts the attitudes, conflicts, phobias, and fetishes we attach to our all-too-weak flesh with a take-no-prisoners bravado. Forcing us to examine how our reckless pursuit of beauty standards has blurred the jagged line between self-care and self-mutilation. And Fargeat does so without offering solutions, reassurance, or much concern for our comfort zones. 

THE MIRROR CRACK'D (1980)

Only the second feature film from the gifted director/writer/editor, The Substance is a darkly surreal fairy tale exploring body image, beauty standards, aging, self-loathing, misogyny, disposable people culture, patriarchy, psychological violence, and two of my all-time favorite themes: dualism and the human desire to connect and be loved. 

Though in so many ways unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, The Substance possesses a visual richness that pays homage to classic cinema while blazing an audaciously unique path all its own. Psychological, cultural, and emotional truths merge with a barely-linked-to-reality narrative that evokes a monstro-mutation of the cinema of our past: All About Eve, Showgirls, Death Becomes Her, The Portrait of Dorian Gray, Perfect, Black Swan, Carrie, and of course--

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

This movie is 75 years old. A society really must have a serious talk with itself to explain how a woman losing her mind because she's turning 50 is still a thing

Embodying the tagline of 1974’s The Day of the Locust: “It Happened in Hollywood, But It Could Have Happened in Hell,” The Substance is set in a present-day Hollywood of the mind—a Hollywood where it sometimes snows, people still read newspapers to find jobs, nighttime talk show hosts are Black, exercise TV programs are ratings blockbusters, and ‘80s/‘90s aesthetics...like legwarmers...have never really left. 

The film's anti-heroine is once-popular, Oscar-winning actress Elisabeth Sparkle (it’s her real name; for we learn in school she was called Lizzie Sparkle, “the most beautiful girl in the world”…at least according to Fred in 10th-grade homeroom). Elisabeth is on the verge of an existential crisis.

Demi Moore as Elisabeth Sparkle

Margaret Qualley as Sue

The (de)evolution of Elisabeth’s career suggests perhaps ageism played a role in her no longer acting in movies (roles for women over 40 make up only 5% of available female film roles), leading her down the B-List showbiz path of TV aerobics guru -"Sparkle Your Life with Elisabeth" - and advertising spokesperson exploiting her catchphrase "You Got It!" A career in which her success and fame are entirely linked to her physical appearance and age-defying physicality. 

Alas, age-defying doesn't mean age-less. On her 50th birthday, Elisabeth receives (in the harshest way imaginable) the world-shattering news that she and her long-running TV show are to be put out to pasture to make room for a tighter, firmer, younger version of both. 

Dennis Quaid as Network Executive (wouldn't you know it) Harvey

These guys don't think you're hot enough. 

As emphasized by the film’s Kubrick-esque camera angles and macro closeups, The Substance is partially an allegory about distorted perceptions. TV executive Harvey's lack of self-perception makes him think he's a charming winner instead of a bullying sociopath whose inner sense of inadequacy manifests in external outbursts of psychological violence. Always targeting women.  

On the distaff side, Elisabeth's lack of self-perception is a kind of mind blindness. She has an inability to latch onto any yardstick of self-evaluation not linked to impossible aesthetic norms and the validation of the male gaze. Her lack of self-esteem manifesting in escalating internal (and later, VERY external) outbursts of self-directed violence...psychological, emotional, and physical. In fact, she hates herself.

The fact that an entire wall of Elisabeth's Barbarella spaceship-style penthouse is dominated by a
floor-to-ceiling portrait of herself tells us everything we need to know about her priorities 

It can be said that Elisabeth's lack of inner substance—exemplified in her complete embrace of superficial beauty ideals that undermine her worth as a human—is the fatal character flaw that sets the conflict of The Substance in motion. Instead of directing her anger at a social construct that diminishes her in every way, she directs her anger at herself for failing to live up to these ridiculous standards. Still, it's impossible not to feel empathy. 

One can always detect discernable traces of self-loathing behind the physical perfection-seekers of our culture, but since we're a society that values overachievement no matter how hollow the reward -as in celebrating "good" plastic surgery or the "quickest" fad diet- we reinforce the notion that "looking" like we're okay on the outside is more important than actually "being" okay inside.

That's one of the reasons why I think fame and celebrity are so sought-after by those plagued by self-disgust; though meaningless in the larger scheme of things, the external validation of strangers can work like lead to the kryptonite of introspection. 

Letting others define you and tell you exactly what you need to be, do, and look like to make yourself worthy of love is a doctrine that clearly works for a great many people. Religions have been doing it for centuries, and they swear by it (literally). 

Of course, the implicit caveat behind the conditional love and transitory admiration offered by celebrity and fame is the understanding that said "stars" must never change or age. 

"Youth and beauty are not accomplishments. They're the temporary happy by-products 

of time and/or DNA. Don't hold your breath for either."  Carrie Fisher -2015

For someone like Elisabeth, being told that she's at the end of her career is like telling her she's at the end of her life. The Substance—an underground youth elixir that promises a younger, more beautiful, and more perfect version of oneself—enters Elisabeth’s life at the exact moment she starts to feel its impending erasure. How convenient.

And while the promise of that little Day-Glo vial is irresistible and appears to be the solution to all of Elisabeth's problems, anyone who's read a Stephen King novel, watched an Amicus anthology horror film, or seen an episode of The Twilight Zone knows- 

...there's always a catch.

Whoopi Goldberg - Ghost (1990)

That image above of the injected and divided egg yolk will have to serve as summary of how the drug known as The Substance works. Fargeat is far too compelling a visual storyteller (and it's all too far-out and surreal) for anything I write to do it justice. 

I will say that The Substance does indeed create a new, fully formed, independent person from Elisabeth’s DNA (picture Botticelli’s "The Birth of Venus" reimagined by David Cronenberg); however, Sue, as she names herself, is more a “side” of Elisabeth than a new “version.” 

Self Care
"I guess I just try to be myself. To be sincere and grateful for all that I have. And to always remember to lead with my heart." - Sue, spouting the empty affirmations of selfie-caption psychology 

The ultimate Odd Couple, Elisabeth and Sue, share an apartment and an irksomely inconsistent consciousness while living an alternating existence of one week on, one week off. 

It’s a bit like if the adult, self-possessed part of me and the side that still compulsively bites my fingernails existed as two separate people. It’s definitely ME biting my nails; however, in most cases, it’s something I do without conscious awareness. I often “catch” myself biting my nails, which sounds absurd since it’s ME, yet that’s how it works. You’re one, yet it’s still possible to act as though you are disconnected from yourself. 

Sweet Sue

No one else, it seems, ever shared my dreams.
And without you, dear, I don't know what I'd do.

In Robert Altman's 3 Women (1977), Sissy Spacek plays a character named  Pinky Rose (!) who cultivates a hyperfeminine personality that comes to dominate and drain the life force of her roommate Millie (Shelley Duvall). A similar dynamic develops between Elisabeth and Sue in The Substance, turning this already ingeniously assaultive allegory into an absolutely demented roar of anger confronting the horrific violence we’re willing to inflict upon ourselves (body and psyche) in the pursuit of unattainable perfection.

The Violence of Beauty
Hard to imagine a male director including a detail like this. When Elisabeth is taken to the hospital after an accident, there is a brief shot of her bare legs dangling over the edge of the table. Barely visible are the callouses of friction blisters...the kind that come from wearing high heels

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

I don't often write about contemporary films, but when I do, I've noticed that most of them tend to be of a "sort": Hereditary (2018), Black Swan (2010), Midsommar (2019), Maps to the Stars (2014), Nocturnal Animals (2016). This sort being movies that convey a sense of auteurist vision, independent daring, and a kind of artistic audacity that reminds me of that unpredictable, "Only in the '70s," off-the-wall quality that made so many films from that era so great. And so insane!

I love everything about The Substance: its immersive use of sound (incredible!), color, camera angles, editing, and locations. All is in service of the film's meticulously-crafted worldview. A worldview wherein absolutely everything feels excessive, yet nothing feels wasteful. 

Best of all, I think it's a very smart movie. It knows what it wants to say and, by refusing to spell everything out, doesn't mind if what's being expressed is misunderstood. Indeed, in some ways, it could be said that The Substance dares you to like it. 

A valid argument could be made that the film's points are made with a sledgehammer, but to that, I'd say, if in the year 2025 we're still having men legislate women's bodies, then perhaps a sledgehammer is necessary to get these (to me) obvious points across.

These guys don't think you're hot enough.
Daniel Knight and Jonathan Carley as Casting Directors

I have four sisters, and according to them, the "Seinfeld Syndrome"—their term for the phenomenon of utterly unprepossessing guys expecting physical perfection from women—is far from a social exaggeration. 

I found The Substance to be compelling, grotesque, ingenious, and as sharp as a razor. It moved me and grossed me out, and the ending, in particular, is so poignant (major waterworks) that it’s a shame the scene itself is so difficult to watch. Speaking of which, I've seen The Substance four times—well, make that three; the first time shouldn't count because I spent so much time covering my eyes—and each time, I continue to discover new things. There's something powerfully honest about a movie that examines how the marginalized can internalize and identify with society's hatred of them. 

The Final Metamorphosis

"Few things are sadder than the truly monstrous." 
                                           Nathanael West - The Day of the Locust -1939

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

For a film about an actress, set in Hollywood (filmed in France) and exploring the pressures placed on women to be perfect, I appreciate how Coralie Fargeat and her team utilize a visual storytelling style that has the viewer perpetually processing this new story (The Angry Young Woman has yet to become a trope, but I think it might be on its way) through the echo of familiar cinematic imagery. 

The power of images is immense, which is why it's crucial to ask ourselves who is behind the representations we see of ourselves in movies, TV, and advertising. If those controlling what we see are also the people who hate us, then their only vested interest is in teaching us how to hate ourselves. 

The obsession with perfection is the core theme of both
The Substance and Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan 

The Substance and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey
Grids and Richard Strauss' " Thus Spake Zarathustra feature in both films

These bold callbacks to Kubrick's The Shining heighten The Substance's use 

of confined spaces to create tension and convey a sense of imminent violence.

PERFORMANCES

This is a two-hander as far as I'm concerned, with both Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley delivering full-throttle, pull-out-the-stops performances that are each unimaginable without the other. Qualley is new to me, but she had me in her pocket in the silent scene where Sue comes upon an indented easy chair and TV remote- evidence that Elisabeth has been wasting her allotted time doing nothing but watching television. The acute level of disapproving judgment and disgust that comes across Qualley's face at this moment speaks volumes about her character.  I don't know how she did it. 

American Beauty / Black Dahlia

I have to confess I'm not the best Demi Moore fan. I checked on IMDB to see how many of her films I'd seen...grand total: five (my favorite being Mortal Thoughts -1991). Before The Substance, I had not seen Moore in a movie since the 2007 Kevin Costner thriller Mr. Brooks, and I hadn't even REMEMBERED she was in it!

Moore came back into my awareness when a relative gifted me her 2019 memoir (which I initially met with a WTF? but it turns out the book is really terrific). And then, last year, she turned in a brief but powerful performance in the FX series FEUD: Capote vs. The Swans. And I was besotted. 

"You got it!" 

I would like to say that Demi Moore in The Substance gives a career-best performance, but it's already been established that I'm ill-equipped to make such a call. What I will say is that she gives my #1 favorite performance of this year. There's no better testament to the truth and humanity she brings to her character than the fact that The Substance works at all. In some ways, it is an absolutely lunatic movie that takes risk after risk with the audience's suspension of disbelief. Yet, it stays grounded due to the reality and meta-authenticity Moore delivers. 

In a largely silent role, Moore is wonderfully expressive in conveying everything that Elisabeth feels and experiences. Much like what I've always admired about Julie Christie, Moore meets the challenge of giving an essentially superficial character enough depth for us to relate to and empathize with.

BONUS MATERIAL

Reality + (2014)

In this early short film by Coralie Fargeat, she touches upon many of the same themes

explored in The Substance, only from a male perspective. You can watch it HERE.

Men aren't immune to the prevailing pressure to conform to unrealistic beauty standards--though, being men and inherently fragile, we find it necessary to disguise appearance obsession in "action" language: strong, fit, athletic, healthy, muscular, powerful, and so forth; or label it a "masculinity standard" and infuse it with an alpha illusion of self-actualization ("The only reason I work out is because I'm always my BEST me, and it gets me lots of sex. I'm the one in control."). In other words, anything to mask acknowledging the inherent passivity and loss of power that goes with courting the objectifying gaze.    

Revenge (2017)
Coralie Fargeat made her feature film directing debut with this action thriller
starring Matilda Lutz and Kevin Janssens

Actor Vincent Colombe, cast as one of the silent "suits" in The Substance, has featured roles in both Fargeat's Revenge and the short film Reality +.

Jurassic Fitness

Having enjoyed a long career in the fitness industry myself (1985 to 2019), I absolutely loved that Elisabeth Sparkle was an aerobics instructor! That brief "Sparkle Your Life with Elizabeth" sequence was like watching my past flash before my eyes. Every move executed in her class was one I'd done thousands of times. Even the toxic inspirational/abusive language rings true - "Think of those bikini bods! You wanna look like a giant jellyfish on the beach?"

The photo on the right is an outtake from a mercifully unproduced step-aerobics video project.

As a group instructor and personal trainer, I was pretty much immersed in a world that feeds on and perpetuates everything that The Substance is about (explaining in part why this movie so resonated with me). The promotion of oppressive beauty standards has always been a part of our culture, but the kind of perfectionist extremes The Substance speaks to have their roots in the "exercising for the aesthetics" trend of '80s fitness culture. 

In fact, that tiny figure in the far left side of the movie screencap at the bottom is me working as an extra in the 1985 John Travolta/Jamie Lee Curtis aerobics exercise opus called...you guessed it, "Perfect." 

Sue's "Pump It Up" exercise TV program is satirically over-the-top, but from 1980 to 1982, the cable network Showtime ran a truly hilariously overheated "erotic exercise" program called "Aerobicise" that makes Sue's show look like a documentary. There's a YouTube channel devoted to it HERE.

Take Care of Yourself 

Copyright © Ken Anderson    2009 -  2024

CHICAGO 2002

For me, the history of CHICAGO  has always been inextricably linked with that of A Chorus Line. CHICAGO premiered on Broadway on June 3rd, 1975; A Chorus Line, six weeks later, on July 25th. CHICAGO opened to mixed reviews and struggled at the boxoffice; A Chorus Line was met with raves, won the Pulitzer Prize, and was nothing short of a cultural phenomenon. CHICAGO was nominated for 11 Tony Awards, won 0; A Chorus Line was nominated for 12, won 9.

CHICAGO and A Chorus Line also happen to be linked together in my memory. Certainly, I remember that day in August of 1975 when I went to The Gramophone, a gay-owned and operated record store on San Francisco's Polk Street, and purchased the Original Broadway Cast Recording LPs of both shows. Although I hadn't yet heard a single note from either score, I was so fired up from consuming all the After Dark Magazine-fed hype surrounding the opening of each production (that invaluable, homoerotic, national entertainment magazine being my sole West Coast pipeline to what was happening on Broadway), that I was almost smug in my confidence that my two blind purchases were far from being a gamble. 

August 5, 1975 - $4.88 each
Both were single LPs in glossy gatefold jackets loaded with photos & liner notes

Given that Broadway musicals don't crop up with the regularity of movies, the appearance of the highly-anticipated shows was quite a big deal to me. Before CHICAGO & A Chorus Line captured my imagination, the last Broadway cast album I'd purchased was Sondheim's A Little Night Music, a musical meal I'd been dining out on since 1973. Having committed every note and melody of that splendid score to memory by then, I could scarcely believe my good fortune that 1975 held forth the promise of TWO major Broadway musical releases I could submerge myself in. 

Back in the day, all the smart money was on CHICAGO. The only familiar names A Chorus Line boasted were composer Marvin Hamlish, then all but unavoidable after his recent Oscar win for The Sting (1973), and director-choreographer Michael Bennett, whose name was familiar to me from the liner notes of the library-borrowed cast albums of Company and Follies. CHICAGO distinguished itself as the musical with the Broadway heavy hitters and showbiz pedigree. It marked the Broadway musical return of Gwen Verdon (her last Broadway musical was 1966's Sweet Charity)! The professional reunion of husband & wife collaborators Verdon & Fosse! The reteaming of Fosse with his Cabaret and Liza with a Z collaborators: the composer-lyricist-writing duo of John Kander and Fred Ebb! And best of all, CHICAGO marked the first-time pairing of two genuine Broadway legends…Gwen Verdon and Chita Rivera!

Illustration by Sam Norkin -1975

Wanting to start with the "sure thing," I listened to the CHICAGO album first, which became one of those rarer-than-rare occurrences where one's extraordinarily high expectations are met and exceeded. Hearing that incredible score for the first time...every single song a showstopper...not a clunker in the bunch...was such a thrill. The songs and their often hilarious lyrics set my imagination on fire... I could practically see the entire production in my head. I was instantly attracted to the storyline--the phoniness of show biz reflecting the phoniness of the American legal system. And if the cynicism at CHICAGO's core struck me as caustic and pessimistic, consider that I was just 17 at the time (sarcasm and snark are like crack cocaine to a teenager) and that it was the summer of '75. The summer that saw the dynamic downer duo of Nashville and The Day of the Locust released to movie theaters just weeks before. The timing couldn't have been more perfect. CHICAGO was simply riding the crest of the zeitgeist. 

May 6, 1976

That's Jane Fonda speaking at a Tom Hayden rally in Sacramento and 18-year-old me in this, the only photo I have of my beloved official CHICAGO T-shirt I wore for years until it disintegrated. An image captured mere moments before Ms. Fonda graciously signed the Barbarella photo I've got secreted away in the book you see tucked under my arm (The Busby Berkeley Book). The memo is an affirmative reply to my written request to NY's 46th St. Theater inquiring about the possibility of purchasing a CHICAGO T-shirt (mail-order Broadway merchandise was yet to be a thing). It cost a whopping $5 plus $1 shipping. 

Next, I listened to A Chorus Line, optimistically resigned to the certainty that it couldn't match my CHICAGO experience. Jump ahead several hours. Me on the floor in front of the family stereo, headphones on, in a theater geek's state of transcendence, eyes red and nose runny from listening to A Chorus Line three times in a row and bawling my eyes out. 

And there you have what was then, and continues to be, the essential link in my relationship with CHICAGO and A Chorus Line. They're culturally joined at the hip for me. Iconic templates of a particular time and place in my life--I'd graduated high school in June, I'd been "out" to myself for about two years (4 more years to go for family), it was the summer of Jaws, it was the summer of my independence. And these two shows, listened to as regularly and relentlessly as though they were on a loop, were the soundtrack of my adult-adjacent freedom. 

June 7, 1976
I saw A Chorus Line when the National Company came to San Francisco's
 Curran Theater in May. Ever the autograph hound, my friend and I became
stage-door Johnnies for the show's entire run

But CHICAGO was always the diamond…sharp, dazzling, and cold, while A Chorus Line was always the heart (a vision of Lauren Bacall singing "Hearts, Not Diamonds" in The Fan just popped into my head). To me, A Chorus Line was a dark, almost melancholy show... a Follies for theater gypsies...but unlike CHICAGO, it was humane and compassionate. And that made listening to it a poignant and exhilarating experience—all goosebumps and waterworks. Each musical, reflecting as they did, opposite yet equally valid faces of our culture (post-Watergate disillusionment & "Me Generation" introspection), also appealed to the contrasting sides of my own nature. CHICAGO and A Chorus Line complemented one another. 

It wasn't until 1992 that the opportunity arose for me to actually see a production of CHICAGO on stage for the first time. The Long Beach Civic Light Opera put on a fabulous, faithful-to-the-original production starring Juliet Prowse and Bebe Newerth, utilizing Tony Walton's original set designs, Patricia Zipprodt's costuming, and featuring two members of the original 1975 cast. It was astoundingly good. This may explain why I was never very fond of the pared-down, anachronistically costumed look of CHICAGO's phenomenally successful 1996 Broadway revival. An antipathy reinforced when I saw a 2012 production starring Christie Brinkley (by this point, stunt-casting was the only teeth the show had left).

Since 1975, A Chorus Line's cultural grip has weakened a bit. Thanks to a monumentally mishandled 1985 movie adaptation and the musical's once-innovative confessional format feeling almost quaint in the modern climate of social media oversharing. Meanwhile, CHICAGO, a show once criticized for its relentlessly downcast gaze into life's sewers, has hung around long enough for its down-in-the-gutter perspective (I hear Candy Darling in Women in Revolt "Too low for the dogs to bite!") to be precisely eye-level with what mainstream American culture has come to normalize, reward, and elect.   

And something happened that, for the longest time, I had given hope of ever seeing...after decades of false starts and empty rumors (Liza and Goldie! Goldie and Madonna!), and against impossible odds (non-animated movie musicals were given the death knell) CHICAGO, at last, had been made into a movie. Twenty-seven years after its Broadway debut. 

Renee Zellweger as Roxie Hart

Catherine Zeta-Jones as Velma Kelly

Richard Gere as Billy Flynn

Queen Latifah as Matron Mama Morton

John C. Reilly as Amos Hart

CHICAGO, the Bob Fosse/Fred Ebb/John Kander musical vaudeville about two amoral, overaged, gin-soaked jazz babies on murderers' row, desperate to parlay their 15-minutes of criminal infamy into show biz careers, was made into a $45 million major motion picture. Who was the director tasked with reviving the viability of live-action musicals? None other than Rob Marshall, the Tony Award-nominated choreographer-director of that 1992 Juliet Prowse/Bebe Neuwirth Long Beach production that knocked my socks off.  

It's impossible to overstate how excited I was that Friday morning in December of 2002 when my partner and I, returning home from a Christmas trip, stopped off at our place just long enough to drop off our luggage so we could hightail it to Century City and be among the first audience to see CHICAGO on its December 27th opening day in LA. When the film was over and we were handed our evaluation cards by anxious-looking marketing people (the film wouldn't open wide until January), I thought I had died and gone to stage-to-screen heaven. We were both so euphoric over what we'd just seen, after exiting the theater, we swiftly got right back in line to see it again.

Chita Rivera as Nickie
Broadway's original Velma Kelly makes a cameo appearance as a Cook County Jail inmate.
Her name is a nod to the character she played in Fosse's 1969 film Sweet Charity.

Rob Marshall and screenwriter Bill Condon avoided several pitfalls from the outset by not trying to reimagine the show for the screen. Instead, they came up with a device (the musical numbers erupt out of Roxie's fevered fantasies) that made the highly-stylized, stage-bound show more cinematic. Boasting spectacular cinematography, a sensational cast, and dazzling choreography, they succeeded in bringing the CHICAGO I loved to the screen. (It had been my gravest fear that the "Victoria's Secret meets International Male" Broadway revival version of  CHICAGO would be the only surviving template for future generations.) 

The film became a major boxoffice and critical hit, garnering a whopping 13 Oscar nominations that year, winning 6, among them Best Picture. CHICAGO revitalized the movie musical.

Taye Diggs as The Bandleader

Christine Baranski as Mary Sunshine

But writing this now, in 2022, it's clear my once all-encompassing ardor for CHICAGO has cooled a bit over the years. After the dust of anticipation settled and I was able to breathe a sigh of relief that the screen adaptation wasn't a botch job like A Chorus Line: The Movie, only then did I notice that somewhere along its 27-year path to the screen, CHICAGO had become neutered. 

When I look at CHICAGO today, the film's black comedy subtext targeting the institutional corruption of the media, penal system, politics, and law, doesn't hit nearly as hard as how sympathetically Roxie and Velma are portrayed. 

Gwen Verdon & Chita Rivera gave us a Roxie and Velma who were genuinely "...older than I ever intended to be." The undeserving pair's hunger for vaudeville fame was a last-gasp act of desperation and resentment after a lifetime of failure and rejection. The Roxie and Velma of the film are both so young and beautiful (and talented) that we're left with the impression that life, indeed, has been unduly dismissive of them. Each suffers so many humiliations, setbacks, and exploitations that by the finale, we're rooting for them and have forgotten (or stopped caring) that they are remorseless murderers. This is obviously the whole point, and the film stays true to that notion... academically. But rather than leaving the audience with a bad taste in its mouth for its complicity in the amorality, I know I was just happy to see these two exploited sad sacks seeing their dreams come true. It was a feel-good ending passing itself off as hard-knock cynicism. 

Fosse/Verdon (2019)

Bianca Marroquin and Michelle Williams

CHICAGO rehearsals 1975

Bob Fosse: "And I'm saying that it would be better for the show if the…."

Gwen Verdon: "Better for the show? Oh, really? Better for the show… Is that really what you think? I'll tell you what would have been better for the show: opening four months ago with a director who wasn't hellbent on turning it into two hours of misery for the audience."

The above exchange may be fictional (from the splendid miniseries Fosse/Verdon), but it reflects a genuine issue that plagued the original production of CHICAGO from the start: concern that Fosse had simply made the show too bitter and misanthropic for its own good. 

Hollywood had no such concerns. When the time came for the film adaptation, far too much Hollywood money was riding on CHICAGO for the studio to even consider taking a chance on having another Pennies from Heaven on its hands (1981's mega-depressing megaflop about another amoral character who uses musical fantasy to escape reality). Miramax insured its $45 million investment by making sure that with this CHICAGO, a good time was going to be had by all. Even if it was a musical about murder, greed, corruption, violence, exploitation, adultery, and treachery--all those things we all hold near and dear to our hearts.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS MOVIE

No one can say Rob Marshall didn't understand the assignment. He was hired to deliver a hit movie musical, and he did. Brilliantly. It really wasn't his fault that the CHICAGO he (and I) fell in love with back in 1975—labeled by many critics at the time as mean-spirited and ugly—had long given way to the forget your troubles, c'mon get happy crowd-pleaser CHICAGO of today. The revamped 1996 Broadway revival of CHICAGO turned Fosse's 1975's ambivalent success into the 2nd longest-running musical in Broadway history. And it didn't accomplish that by making visiting tourists and blue-haired theater parties uncomfortable. It became a hit by submerging the show's unsavory attributes under layers of glamour, sex, and style. Yes, with nary a trace of irony or self-awareness, CHICAGO had become Fosse's "Razzle Dazzle" number.

CHICAGO's themes remain relevant, but its contemptuous 

view of America and humanity no longer discomfit

PERFORMANCES

Casting a movie in ways that invite comparisons to a show's original cast can be problematic. Since there IS no other Roxie Hart for me but Gwen Verdon, I was actually pleased that the film went with an entirely different take on the character. I hadn't seen Renée Zellweger in anything before, but her Roxie has a Glenda Farrell quality—tough, quirky, wisecracking—that feels both period-perfect and suits the film's concept. Catherine Zeta-Jones is dynamic as Velma Kelly, but the lovely woman hasn't a coarse bone in her body. The "foul-mouth broad" part of her performance never convinced me. It's impossible to take your eyes off of her when she's onscreen, but when she tries for Velma's lowbrow vulgarity, the best you get (and here she isn't alone) is Damon Runyon-esque posturing of the Guys and Dolls sort. The entire cast of CHICAGO is exceptionally good, Richard Gere--the most animated I've seen him onscreen since Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977)--being a particular delight, displaying even more playful showmanship at age 52 than in that online clip of his 1973 appearance in Grease.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

The thrill and terror of seeing any movie adaptation of a favorite show is discovering what they did with (or to) the songs you loved best. Sometimes your favorites don't even make it into the finished film (On a Clear Day You Can See Forever's baffling decision to excise its sole lively production number "Wait Till We're Sixty-Five"). Other times you'll wish they hadn't (don't get me started on A Chorus Line: The Movie again). From the very first time I listened to the CHICAGO Broadway cast album, "Funny Honey," "The Cell Block Tango," "Roxie," and "Nowadays" became my favorite songs in the show. How did their transfer to film rate? 

"Funny Honey"-    B

The movie goes for a sultry, torchy interpretation of this number and scores high points for how it cleverly establishes the film's visual vocabulary for Roxie's fantasies. It only earns a "B" grade because as good as Zellweger is, she simply can't touch Gwen Verdon for comedy delivery. An observation that's less a jab at Ms. Z than a tip of the hat to Verdon.  

"The Cell Block Tango"-  A+

Every detail about this inspired fever dream of a number works magnificently for me. I especially love that Marshall includes the "victims" in this death tango, and the way the prison reality is intercut with the fantasy. The number is theatrical, it's cinematic, it's a scarlet wall of women behind bars. My favorite number in the movie.

"Roxie"-  A+

Roxie is a singular sensation to herself in this narcissist's anthem that becomes a terrifically glossy and stylish production number in the style of the classic Hollywood musicals. It's deliciously old-fashioned, and Zellewgger shines in it. Literally. 

"Nowadays/Hot Honey Rag"- A+

Gangbusters! Because "Hot Honey Rag" wasn't on the OBC album, I only became aware of it when Verdon & Rivera performed it on variety shows, and then I think it was just called "Keep It Hot." Anyhow, it's now a standard part of revival recordings and a "new" favorite for me. "Nowadays" is given its due as both a solo & duet, and the electric staging of "Hot Honey Rag" had me thinking of the flappers in Thoroughly Modern Millie. And seriously, the lyrics to "Nowadays" are out of this world.

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

In spite of that dreadful, written-for-the-film, Oscar-bait song "I Move On," I'll always enjoy the movie version of CHICAGO. It's an incredibly well-crafted musical that I credit for rescuing the genre from animated singing teapots, and I genuinely think it deserves all of its success. (Though Marshall revealing in the DVD commentary that personal fave-rave Toni Collette was almost cast as Roxie was a bit of "what if?" news I didn't need. OMG...can you imagine?! Be still my heart.)

But through no fault of its own--after all, the movie didn't change, I did--CHICAGO just doesn't stand the test of time for me as what I might consider a classic musical. When I revisit Cabaret (1972), even after all these years, it's a film that continues to offer me a full-course meal. Rewatching  CHICAGO recently was like having a sorbet dessert...thoroughly delightful and pleasant, but there wasn't anything for me to chew on. 

I told you that CHICAGO and A Chorus Line are eternally linked for me. Here it is 2022; both shows have been made into films, yet when I really want to have my best experience of either and both...I still go back to listen to those original Broadway cast records I purchased in August of 1975.

BONUS MATERIAL

There's a wealth of material about CHICAGO on YouTube and throughout the internet. You can see clips from the original production, the 1992 Long Beach production, the 1996 Broadway revival, and the deleted "Class" musical number from the motion picture. Any footage you can catch of Gwen Verdon and Chita Rivers performing is guaranteed to be pure magic. 

Also available on YouTube (for the time being) is the silent film version of Chicago (1927)
 and the Ginger Rogers remake/reworking of Roxie Hart (1942) - Thanks, Cinefilia

My favorite curio is an audio track from the 1975 Philadephia tryouts that features cut songs and the original lyrics to "The Cell Block Tango" (wherein we discover "Lipschitz" initially referred to Jacques Lipschitz, the cubist sculptor). Listen to it HERE.  

"Minsky's Chorus" by Reginal Marsh - 1935
The painting that inspired the original CHICAGO poster art

Clip from "The Cell Block Tango"

Copyright © Ken Anderson   2009 - 2022