My morning routine goes like this: layers of stuff lathered on my face, sunscreen to top it all off because I don’t want to age prematurely, a dash of lip colour and a good 15 minutes of just staring at all the imperfections on my face. Now that I’m 35, this stare-off with myself gets more protracted, and everyday I watch as the years accumulate on my face. Ageing is an inevitable reality but we live in a society that values the young and beautiful, so we hold on tightly to our youth for as long as possible, feeding millions into the beauty and medical aesthetics industries so that we can stave off the effects of time. We want to be vampires more than human, and there’s a price to pay for any kind of immortality.
Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is a dance exercise icon, but now that she’s 50, the company that profited off her is now looking in a different direction. In a split second, she goes from having a successful show and a wall full of her portraits to sheer nothingness. She’s a beautiful woman, but she cannot compete with the fresh-faced nubile young things that are eagerly waiting to take her place. At this low point in her life, she’s introduced to the substance, a procedure that would allow her to become young again, but of course as with everything in life, there’s a cost. The caveat is that she and her other self need to switch positions every 7 days, and that the balance between the matrix (herself) and the other self must be maintained for optimal results.
Moore is absolutely fearless in this movie. Her vacant stares at Harvey (Dennis Quaid) as she discovers how disposable she is, her visceral rage at her other self Sue (Margaret Qualley) for abusing the balance, her constant critical gaze of herself in the mirror – there’s minimal dialogue in most of these scenes but her physicality is so good that she brings us into Elisabeth’s interior so acutely. The body horror elements of the film are so well done, and watching Elisabeth allow herself to be ripped open and taken apart just so she can be worthy of commodification again is heartbreaking.
I love the contrast in the colour palette when it comes to Elisabeth and Sue’s worlds. When Sue struts about, the colours are eye-catchingly vibrant, and she has the world swooning at her feet. Sue’s body is framed in a way that’s meant to appeal to not just the male gaze but the female gaze as well, as we stare enviously at her twerking body and gaze up at her face on a billboard that’s always within our sight. Elisabeth’s world is darker and she’s mostly confined to the interior of her apartment, glued to the television set as she watches her other self set the world ablaze while she’s writhing in the abyss of her own pain. Elisabeth can stop this at any time, after all she is the matrix and her other self cannot survive without her, but then who is she without Sue? Her entire sense of being as been built around her beauty and appearance, and if she cuts Sue loose, she has nothing to live for.
Coralie Fargeat’s film highlights the self-hatred and loathing society teaches us to develop about ourselves, because that’s what feeds a billion dollar industry. We put our self esteems in the hands of gross men like Harvey (Quaid’s performance has made me never want to eat shrimp again), and buy into their heinous perspectives. The final act of The Substance is a big, bloody screw-you to the system that perpetuates such horrors, and a reminder to women to respect the balance within ourselves – to not give in to the voices inside that tell us we’re not good enough.
REVIEW SCORE – 4.5/5
