The female (self-critical) gaze

“You can’t escape from yourself.” – the Substance (Yann Bean)

The film begins with a nice sequence depicting the construction of a pavement star in honour of our protagonist, Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and then its subsequent erosion by the elements and the passage of time; a nice visual metaphor for waning celebrity. Sparkle is one such fading star, now turning fifty-years-old and hosting a weekly aerobics show on TV. The show’s producer, Harvey (Dennis Quaid), is overheard by Sparkle disparaging her age and seeking a younger replacement, and the distracted Sparkle crashes her car on her way home from the studio. A nurse at the hospital gives her a USB drive referring to The Substance, which promises a better version of herself.

“Pretty girls should always smile!” – Harvey

‘The Substance’ (surely a double-meaning for what should be below the surface) is at its best when it offers a scabrous critique of the male-dominated entertainment industry, the self-destructive nature of narcissism (made explicit by the number of mirrors and scenes of self-examination) and as an exhortation to grow old gracefully. Harvey is the personification of patriarchal power and its contempt for the female gender, which he commodifies mercilessly, seeing women as over-the-hill when they reach their late twenties. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat shoots Harvey in unseemly close-ups that distort his features à la Terry Gilliam (and this visual distortion extends to Sparkle’s mindset as her mental state declines). Quaid looks like he’s having a blast essaying this monster, even making eating or inhaling on a cigarette look like obscene acts. The entertainment industry relies on an endless stream of scantily-clad youth to advertise and entice, luring an audience in an act of exploitation and manipulation of both the product and the consumer.

“What has been used on one side is lost on the other side.” The Substance

Sparkle owes both her celebrity and its aftermath to this system, with the former fomenting a narcissism that cannot be sustained by the latter. Many real-life celebrities who occupy this rarefied atmosphere have sought to extend their perceived youth by resorting to cosmetic surgery and its attendant procedures (and I’d lay money on Demi Moore being one of them) under a system that pressures them to be forever young – an impossible ask. When Sparkle activates the Substance, she “gives birth” to her younger self, Sue (Margaret Qualley), through her back – her youth is literally behind her. There’s no necessity to show so much naked flesh, but I don’t think Fargeat is doing it to titillate but rather to show the ravages of time on Sparkle (and by inference, the actor playing her) and, in Sue’s case, that she willingly compromises her future-self for the here-and-now. Much has been made of the Cronenberg-style body-horror here, but I’d also argue that the sheer quantity of nubile young flesh on display becomes almost Cronenbergian in its own right.

“Remember, you are one.” – the Substance

As a sexagenarian myself I know all too well that you become invisible once you reach a certain age, and the film balances that fear of aging with its inverse: the impatience of youth, so while Sparkle is coming to terms with being on the scrapheap, Sue’s time is filled with success and potential, and a youngster’s contempt for her older self’s inactivity.

Never less-than-interesting, it does ultimately feel like a hyper-extended Twilight Zone episode, with its cautionary-tale credentials prominently on show, but Fargeat’s maximalism and penchant for showy inserts gets wearing beyond the limits of artistic indulgence, as well as my patience threshold. Some of the symbolism is a bit on-the-nose and repetitive, but I liked Sparkle’s application of a torniquet to inject the Substance, echoing the visual language of heroin addiction, surely a fix she needs. There are many visual and thematic references to other films like ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ (1968), ‘Frankenstein’ (1931), ‘The Fly’ (1986), and I loved the TV studio set, which looks like a mashup of Franz Kafka and ‘The Shining’ (1980); and the bathroom scene also looks like a visual riff on that horror classic. The directorial flourishes and visual language keep things interesting, as do the cinematography and production design, and it’s a joy to see priority given to practical effects over CGI. The third act sees an overload of narcissistic auto-destruction before a satisfying circular ending.

“What’s the ugliest part of your body?
Is it your nose?
Is it your toes?
I think it’s your mind.” – Frank Zappa