Hangout with me as I discuss The Substance, starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley. I promise you can read this even if you haven’t seen the film, and I won’t ruin it if you still plan to watch it. After Demi’s Golden Globe win, which I talked about in a previous post,
I knew I had to take the time to watch the film that helped her become the talk of the award season. This film, from start to almost the end, was a 5 out of 5 for me, but towards the last 15-20 minutes of the film, the storyline went left and dropped the film down to a 3 out of 5 for me. Let’s get into it.
The film's tagline is " A Fading Celebrity Takes a Black-Market Drug: A Cell-Replicating Substance That Temporarily Creates a Younger, Better Version of Herself” As someone who has walked down the Hollywood Walk of Fame and dreamed of one day seeing my name on a star, the film left me asking a few questions.
“What price are you willing to pay for fame?”
“Is the consumer set up to objectify women until they are tired and then dispose of them?”
“What are you made of when your darkness comes to the surface?”
“Why do we want what we can’t have?”
“Why don’t we value what we do have?”
“Who and what shaped how I see myself, my body, my age?”
Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is a beautiful, mature woman who rose to fame teaching aerobics on TV. From the start, I was invested. Elisabeth is gorgeous. The bright colors and fashion of the 80s summon nostalgia for this 80s baby. It was giving Olivia Newton-John’s Physical meets Richard Simmons. Cinematographer Benjamin Kračun and director Coralie Fargeat chose some extreme close-up shots for the overarching antagonist of the film, Harvey, a sexist and vulgar television executive, driving home disgust for the audience towards this character. Harvey's first obnoxious thing that stuck with me is, “We need her young, we need her hot, we need her now. How the old b*** has been able to stick around for this long, that’s the f**** mystery to me. ”
The Substance of Hollywood, all puns intended, can feel like it is made up of empty promises, money-hungry studio heads, self-absorbed celebrities, and influencers who make reckless decisions. This town may have some of that, but it isn’t what it is made of, and what a horror it would be if it was. Borrowing from horror classics like The Blob, and The Shinning and influences from David Cronenberg, there were several moments I had a hard time watching.
Needles make me squeamish, okay?! I didn’t expect the film to be as gory as it was, but let’s be honest, I went in knowing nothing about it, including that it was a horror film. Through horror, the film addresses the objectification of women, addiction, sexism, ageism, and misogyny. I was very disappointed with the ending. The payoff just wasn’t there in my opinion in the end.
With all that said, thankfully, Art isn’t imitating life on this one; Demi is getting her flowers. Demi truly did give an outstanding performance and didn’t hold back. She bared it all. (Literally) What courage it takes as an artist and a woman of her maturity to go all in like this. What I saw in Elisabeth and Demi was a woman with natural flaws yet still stunning. All Elisabeth saw was an unlovable has been. When given a chance at a “better version of herself,” unbeknownst to her, she was letting out the monster that’s been hiding in the dark of her subconscious. When given the Substance, what was she made of? self-hatred.
So, let’s set the stage back to that Golden Globe night. Despite the world trying to tell Demi she was a popcorn artist, despite her battles with thinking, well, maybe I’d done all that I could do, in this film, she has shown what she’s made of: resilience.