Frances Walton ’26
Editor-in-Chief
Three weeks ago, my friend’s mom came to visit Scripps. Instead of wandering the campus with her daughter or going to The Motley, her mom wanted to rewatch The Substance with her at a matinee showing. I got a text immediately after: You have to see this movie.
The Substance follows Elisabeth Sparkle, a 50-year-old aerobics TV show host, played by Demi Moore. In one of the first and arguably most grotesque scenes, Elisabeth’s producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid) devours shrimp and ogles younger waitresses at a meal with Elisabeth while casually delivering the firing blow: “People always ask for something new. Renewal is inevitable. At 50, well, it stops.”
Searching for a solution to her fading glory, Elisabeth embarks on a journey with The Substance, a black market drug with restrictive conditions that allows Elisabeth to live as a younger, prettier version of herself.
The film was built on strong visual and artistic foundations, with makeup and special effects that do not overpower the film’s message. As a movie with intense body horror, there is extensive use of prosthetics, yet they all look natural and are in line with the general aesthetic of the film. These tasteful effects showcased the grotesque impact of society’s aversion to aging women as well as the horrors women go through to achieve societal beauty.
Similarly, the film’s sets, like Elisabeth’s apartment, have a cohesive aesthetic and allow the characters to mold and change their environment in meaningful ways as the film goes on. There are many deliberate nods to Kubrick’s sets that I didn’t even notice until after finishing the movie — they probably meant a lot to the film bros in the audience.
Demi Moore does an excellent job capturing Elisabeth Sparkle’s emotions as she suffers from the disgust and disinterest people show in her aging body. Moore likely drew this performance from her own experience as a female star in Hollywood who was known for her desirability, especially in her youth. Margaret Qualley, who appears later in the film, did a similarly good job of encapsulating the conceit and vitality of an emerging, youthful, beautiful star. And, as much as I hate to admit it, Dennis Quaid performed incredibly, perfectly toeing the line between a satirical portrayal of smarmy TV producers and an overly caricatured performance.
The Substance was well worth watching, and by the end of the movie, my friend who was rewatching it for the second time, was bawling her eyes out at a horror movie.
SPOILERS:
The crux of The Substance is the relationship between Elisabeth and her younger alter ego, Sue. The Substance requires Elisabeth to switch off between being herself and Sue every seven days. As the film repeats, “Respect the balance,” I found myself wanting to smack some sense into Elisabeth/Sue. Yet, my frustration points to the impossibility of women seeing themselves, younger and older, as the same person, worthy of the same amount of respect and humanity as the other.
Sue’s disregard for Elisabeth and her self-destructive tendencies horrifically exemplify how young women often do things that disrespect the personhood of their older selves (think smoking, drinking, eating unhealthy). Yet, at least for me, it’s hard to see how living it up now should take a back seat to an older person when she (or I… ”you are one”) couldn’t possibly be doing anything as important or fun.
While the movie uses Elisabeth’s aging body to encourage the audience to feel horror, it does so with self-awareness, challenging us to remember that she and Sue are the same person with the same consciousness. It asks us, especially women, to look inward and question why these images—aging skin, wrinkled hands, thinning hair—frighten us so profoundly when these are our inevitable future.
Although Elisabeth is famous, I don’t think the movie feels preoccupied with how she, a star, is clinging to relevance as much as it displays how Elisabeth and all women despise themselves as they age. Elisabeth’s fame shows how her self-worth, and in turn self-hatred, stems from the words of the male producers she interacts with and how the audience she caters to begins to reject her.
The only time Elisabeth addresses other people is to gain the approval of the male-dominated industry and the faceless public, underscoring both her fear of intimacy and fear of herself. She doesn’t speak to any woman other than Sue (herself) for the entire movie. Instead, Elisabeth prioritizes societal approval, as we all tend to do, over her self-actualization and worth. This is epitomized when she chooses to spare Sue from termination, calling her the “best part” of herself—a tragic irony given that Sue is her, but the only part men, the public, and she, herself, loves.
One of the most heartbreaking scenes of the film is when Elisabeth, trying to make the most of her week without Sue, plans and then fails to attend a date with a high school friend. As she gets ready, she becomes increasingly dissatisfied with her appearance, applying more and more makeup before violently smudging it across her face. Although this man saw her worth outside of her appearance, even as a fifty-year-old woman, Elisabeth cannot be satisfied with herself or overcome her internalized disgust at aging. It broke my heart to watch Elisabeth deny herself human connection due to agonizing over her self-image and made me recognize the feeling exemplified in the older women around me.
The stark contrast between the numerous objectifying shots of Sue’s youthful body and the single, unglorified butt shot of older Elisabeth serves as a visual critique: it forces the audience to confront the inherent objectification of women’s bodies and question why the audience easily watches gratuitous shots of Sue’s body and revolts at an aging one. While watching the movie, audience members laughed during multiple scenes nearing the end as they scorned Elisasue for her monstrous appearance. I fear they missed the point entirely. Instead of feeling empathy for women who destroy themselves to please beauty standards, laughs erupted at her putting on earrings in the mirror: women are dehumanized even during the watching of The Substance.
In the final scene, Elisabeth’s fleeting moment of genuine happiness occurs when she is devoid of a body altogether, signifying a release from the suffocating pressures of self-image and societal judgment. The scene encapsulates the movie’s haunting truth: Elisabeth’s only escape from her torment in a world that idolatrizes appearances is to shed her body entirely.
Photo Courtesy: Slate Magazine
