My mother always hated her gray hair. I’d watch as she separated her white strands from the rest of her dark brown hair, gathering them in her fingers as if to count them. I’d catch her glancing in the mirror at her hair, or avoiding wearing gray clothing because she thought it accentuated the color.
I never really understood why until I got older. I became conscious of the sometimes overt, sometimes subliminal messaging that insists women never age, never wrinkle, never gray. And it occurred to me if I, a now 21-year-old woman, am conscious of these pressures, then the pressure must be almost unbearably stifling for a woman in her forties.
But what if, somehow, scientists discovered a way for us to regain youth? What if suddenly, we had the means to not just feel younger, but actually become a younger version of ourselves again? Should we have this ability? And is there a cost to chasing this societal ideal of the perfect (read: young) woman?
The Substance, directed by Coralie Fargeat, explores these questions. Aging actress Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is fired from her aerobics show on her 50th birthday. Distraught, she turns to a mysterious miracle drug called ‘The Substance’ that promises to bring out a better, enhanced version of herself. The only catch is, she can take on the form of her younger, better half, Sue (Margaret Qualley), for only a week at a time; the current middle-aged Elisabeth can never be erased. Inevitably, she still has to return to her former, old self to recharge or else she has to suffer the consequences.
I bet you can see where this story is going.
The plot of the film is fairly predictable. Sharing did not go well for Jekyll and Hyde, so right off the bat we can guess it is probably not going to go well for Elisabeth and Sue. However, I do not think an innovative plot is what makes The Substance worth watching.
What stood out to me was how often I was disgusted and uncomfortable watching the film. I knew going in that The Substance is technically classified as a horror/sci-fi film, so I knew I would not necessarily be relaxed as I was watching. Still, I did not expect it to be as gross as it is.
For example, Elisabeth’s boss, Harvey (Dennis Quaid), behaves like a rat that crawled out of an LA sewer and is trying to fake it as a sweaty, greasy-haired human. He uses a urinal without washing his hands, wears a concerning amount of orange and cannot chew with his mouth closed to save his life.
While I understood that Harvey was meant to be a caricature of a slimy TV executive profiting off of the talent and beauty of women like Elisabeth and Sue, he was nonetheless a lot. In a particularly grotesque shot of him eating shrimp, I couldn’t even focus on what he was saying because I was so concentrated on not looking at the spit strings and grease around his mouth.
There is also a lot of female nudity in this film. I watched it with my roommates and got very engrossed in studying our couch fibers at various scenes in the movie. I was unprepared, and at times it did feel a bit excessive. However, it also felt reflective of just how little shielding and protection women have even from our gaze as the audience. In this way, I felt almost complicit in Elisabeth’s vulnerability, which also played into my discomfort as I watched the film.
The saddest part of The Substance, to me, was how few friends were available to Elisabeth. To be honest, this movie would have been 5 minutes long if, after getting fired, Elisabeth commiserated with someone instead of turning to a definitely-not-FDA-approved fluorescent injectable. She needed one person to tell her to forget Harvey, forget Hollywood, and to take her money and go sip a Mai Tai on a beach in the Bahamas. She needed one person to remind her of the amazing, accomplished woman she already was.
This is especially clear when considering the lack of women available for Elisabeth to befriend and talk to. They were competition for her job. They were judgmental background dancers. But they were never friends. And it made me wonder if the pursuit of perfect womanhood is inherently isolating, because to be perfect you have to be the shiniest, prettiest woman in the room.
Even though I am not sure I would rewatch this film, I think it is an important conversation starter for our current culture. It asks us, as viewers, at what point we stop letting beauty standards mutilate the way we see ourselves, and instead begin defining our own ideals. And it made me stop and consider the power we as women have relinquished to turn something like gray hair into something less than.
If you looking for a horror/slasher movie, this might not be the right watch for you. But if you are looking for a film that is disturbing, thought-provoking and stays with you long after you watch it, I would recommend giving The Substance a try.
