Actual Aging Isn’t as Stressful as Watching The Substance
Courtesy of MUBI
I recently spent two hours and 20 minutes watching The Substance, the new film starring 61-year-old Demi Moore, which satirizes the quest for eternal youth and the viciousness of a misogynistic beauty culture that reviles aging. Fun, right?
Moore plays the ironically named Elizabeth Sparkle, a woman whose acting/TV stardom is fading at 50. Sparkle is given the opportunity to inject herself with the Substance, a chemical cocktail that endows her postmenopausal (or at least 50+ year-old) body with restored fertility. But she might’ve heeded a few warnings first. Because this is not the kind of fertility that produces a fat, rollicking infant, but rather a fully-formed (and what a form!) human being in the prime of her own reproductive life. The “birth” occurs as Elizabeth writhes naked on a bathroom floor, her spine splitting open like an overripe pomegranate, pouring out blood and, ultimately, the nubile Sue (Margaret Qualley), Elizabeth’s young doppelgänger. (And you thought your caesarian was tough!) In an inexplicable cycle in which each woman gets a chance to engage in the world for two weeks while the other descends into a coma-like state naked on that bathroom floor, the efficacy of the Substance is maintained.
THE SUBSTANCE
This is a plot point lost on me; instructions that come with the Substance insist that the women must remember that they are not two people but that “you are one,” which I couldn’t make sense of, since Elizabeth and Sue clearly have their own egos (not to mention intentions). This is a very different kind of Freaky Friday
situation. Each woman seems to be on her own “journey” (though the frequent closeup shots with a fisheye lens often makes it feels more like an acid trip). So while Sue is out in the world enjoying her two weeks of triumph, having replaced Elizabeth on her TV show, Elizabeth’s turn offers her, what? A chance to watch a younger woman having succeeded her? What is Elizabeth actually getting out of the arrangement? (Except, spoiler alert, the enraging agony of slowly transforming into a monster
crone.)
Maybe this is one of the questions the writer-director Coralie Fargeat wants us to ask ourselves. What, in fact, does one get by trying to recapture the beauty of youth? Possibly—for a TV weathergirl—a renewed contract, but not likely a shred of spiritual enhancement or much else of value. Fargeat’s answer becomes increasingly vivid as the movie slides into its blood-soaked finale. (Qualley reports in USA Today that on the set they firehosed 30,000 gallons of fake blood.) So what does one get, according to The Substance ? Extravagant, graphic gore; not to mention public opprobrium and shame.
Fargeat has said that the movie is “a mirror of society’s misogynistic mentality.” Okay, yes, but it’s a funhouse mirror, distorting its message rather than offering a cogent comment on what that misogyny means, or the real, less graphic but no less impactful consequences on women’s physical and emotional health. Our beauty culture does fetishize youthfulness and hypersexuality, suggesting that we’re never okay just as we are and that we must constantly pursue an unattainable physical perfection. (Also that once we’re past our reproductive prime we’re less valuable human beings.) That Demi Moore, who at 61, appears to have the body of a 40-year-old, made it challenging for me to believe in her character’s motivation: She looks incredibly fit; she and Qualley don’t look all that different to my mind. Then again, so many of our gripes with our appearance aren’t visible to anyone but us, as we’ve internalized the criticisms and idealized imagery of our harsh, ageist beauty culture.
I’m never going to say aging is a piece of cake—even when you’re lucky enough to be healthy. Bottom line, it’s no picnic living in an organism with an expiration date, and one that becomes more obvious the older we get. I think that’s what drives the pursuit of youth and youthful beauty, as well as the misogyny that supports it. If you look younger than you are or hide the manifestations of age (or maybe hook up with a partner younger than you are), it’s easier to be reminded less often that, well, one day you’re going to die.
I understand that Fargeat is satirizing beauty culture—especially as it thrives in Hollywood—but I found watching The Substance really stressful. (Moore confesses in USA Today that she got shingles while shooting the film, a fact that surprises me not at all: I nearly got shingles watching it.) In the end, I came away from the ridiculously graphic, over-the-top violence thinking that though misogyny is certainly real (if not as gory as portrayed in the movie), women are far more capable, wiser, and stronger than Elizabeth and Sue, who turn their rage against themselves without reflection. In that vein, The Substance felt like just another slasher, body horror movie, where the victims (clueless, not careful enough, hubristic) are partly responsible for their hideous demise. The Substance would’ve been far more satisfying if one of the women finally declared, “F*ck it. This addiction to body-worship is bullshit,” and like a good recovering addict, called her sponsor ( I might suggest Annette Bening ) for support.
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