A Woman of Substance
Things get messy in more ways than one in Coralie Fargeat's feminist body horror.
When it comes to films I have often, lately, fallen into watching things that are either comforting1 or escapist. Movies that entertain without making me think too much because, without wanting to brag... I overthink, therefore I am.
Still, when I saw a trailer for The Substance earlier this year I was intrigued and had earmarked it as one to watch. I finally did watch it last week and... it's taken some processing and I have some feelings about it.
I'm going to attempt to discuss without being too spoilery but in order to get into some of the thematic stuff there might be mildly spoilerific content below. That said, I think I could describe everything that happens in the film blow by blow and you could still walk out of the cinema after a first viewing wondering what the fuck just happened. It's THAT kind of movie.
Life is a lot like a bath. The longer you stay in it, the wrinklier you get... unless you're Demi Moore
Elisabeth Sparkle (played by an unfeasibly well-preserved Demi Moore) is a fading star whose boss celebrates her 50th birthday by giving her the sack from her workout TV show and is fairly explicit about the fact that it's due to her age. Said boss, as played by Dennis Quaid, has all the swagger (and lack of subtlety) of a human Foghorn Leghorn if he also happened to wear suits made from Liberace's soft furnishings, so there's not a lot of letting her down gently going on.
[sidebar: Demi Moore is actually 60 playing 50 which is a fun reversal of the "any female actor over 35 could plausibly be the mother of a college aged child" trope or even worse, the "Maggie Gyllenhaal being too old at 37 to be the lover of a 55 year old male character" dealio. Also, isn't it weird how Demi Moore hasn't been in any movies really for the last decade, almost like she's too old to get roles now?]
Elisabeth doesn't take this at all well, what with her entire self-worth being tied up in her physical beauty. So she decides to do something about it and that's where The Substance comes into it. What follows is an exploration of self-hatred and fear of ageing, of the beauty and power of youth, of the monstrous, of the superficial. The entertainment industry's tendency to churn through It-girls, and the public's appetite for such are also in the mix.
And that's all fine and well and good. But this movie fucked me up. It made me feel Pretty Fuckin' Uncomfortable and I'm not even talking about all the gross body stuff it does - guys, it does SO MUCH gross body stuff2.
There are a number of scenes in which characters look at themselves in the mirror and don't like what they see, and this movie kind of did that to me in unsettling ways.
Your last fuckable day
How? Well, I'm about to be 50 years old AKA The Age At Which You Stop Being Hot (According to Dennis Quaid). It's not like I was even really internalising the "There is now a ticking countdown on when you stop being fuckable3" thing. Like, I've been fully aware of it for the last 2 years at least. I have been borderline obsessed with making sure I look as hot as possible for my birthday party (hair appointment is booked, still shopping around for a makeup artist, might get my nails done?). I have been extremely cognisant of this being my last great hurrah before I slide into menopause and the inevitable "capri pants and orthopaedic sandals" era of my life. And I'd been thinking all this on the quiet and then this movie came along and made me feel like perhaps this was actually a very shitty thing to be doing like, shit, gurl why are you Dennis Quaiding yourself?!
Ugh. I love/hate movies that call me on my bullshit.
Advanced decrepitude: The Movie
Another thing that kind of ruined me was that there are scenes in which ageing bodies are shown and I was nothing short of REPULSED. Is it that we don't often see aged bodies portrayed on screen and so it's unfamiliar and shocking? Are ageing bodies the new fat bodies? Or is it simply, that as I perceive more and more signs of ageing in my own body4 that this film pressed hard up against a (varicose) vein of denial? Is there a little (probably sagging) part of me that sees an old body as a monstrous body? I think the answer is an embarrassed "yes".
But I do have to hand it to The Substance. It set me up well for the shock. I initially thought that the lingering shots of Margaret Qualley's frankly magnificent arse were the height of crass objectification - a filmmaker falling into the trap of wanting to address how we objectify and commodify women's bodies but in doing so objectifying and commodifying a woman's body - what I now understand is that these earlier, well-lit pans across pert leotarded buttocks were the shot. The chaser? WE WILL SPEND JUST AS MUCH TIME AND ATTENTION FOCUSED ON BODIES THAT ARE NOT NEARLY AS PHOTOGENIC. HOW YOU LIKE THEM ROTTEN APPLES?
Not much. Kinda grossed out. Point taken.
I'm aware that I perhaps have not done a great job of describing this movie but it is, in many ways, indescribable. There's a Grand Guignol finale that is so OTT that at one point I turned to my movie pal and said "omigod, what is HAPPENING?!?".
Just go see it (though I'd entirely understand if you didn't want to, because folks, it is A LOT.)
1 This is how I ended up watching Hope Springs, a decision I very much regret, as I have previously described at length.
2 You know those dreams you have where your teeth fall out? I had one of those the week before seeing this movie and there was one scene that was a bit too much for me.
3 Ahh, this is a classic.
4 For the first time, earlier this year, my lower back has started to have things to say, sometimes quite forcefully.
