Coralie Fargeat’s Cannes 2024 winner ‘The Substance’ is an atmospheric, visceral tale about the ageing body. It follows Demi Moore’s character, Elisabeth Sparkle, as she begins to fall out of favour with TV Execs not due to any misconduct, but simply because her age is advancing. What follows is quite an incredible examination of many themes, including femininity, male objectification, celebrity and stardom.
The film opens on a star featuring Elisabeth Sparkle’s name on the pavement, in the style of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The concrete seems permanent, but during the opening minutes of the film, it cracks as people walk over it. Although Sparkle’s celebrity seems permanent, it clearly is not. A passer-by drops his burger on the star, mopping up the tomato sauce. The smeared sauce is reminiscent of blood, referencing the body horror genre of the film, and the bloodiness of the films ending.
We then see Sparkle in the studio, streaming live on television doing her workout video. We follow her into the toilets, and she disappears into a cubicle. Dennis Quaid’s Harvey is then introduced. The camera is right up in his face, and he stands at the urinal whilst on the phone. The uncomfortable closeness of the angle coupled with the fact that he is handling his genitalia almost feels reminiscent of some kind of sexual assault. Following the MeToo movement, it is not inconceivable to think that in many situations, the camera could directly reference the viewpoint of a woman being subjected to unwanted male attention.
Harvey explains that he is going to fire Sparkle, and that he needs somebody who is ‘young,’ ‘hot’ and ‘now.’ He speaks about Sparkle in a derogatory way because of her age, which is especially ironic considering that he is no spring chicken himself. This scene quickly highlights the double standards between men and women, setting it up as a major theme throughout the film.
As already hinted at, Harvey is a predatory figure. This is fully realised in a scene where he dines with Sparkle. Sitting opposite her, he de-veins and messily eats several prawns. She in contrast does not eat. His physical dismembering, ingestion and discarding of these, formerly, living things directly references Harvey’s intention to discard Sparkle, after he has used her to fuel his career. His gluttony when it comes to food is the same when it comes to money and popularity and drives his decision to get rid of Sparkle. After he leaves, Sparkle notices a fly in her drink, floundering. She is the fly. Harvey did not formally sack her in that meeting, but she knows she is treading water.
This is what pushes Sparkle to use The Substance. This is organised via a phone call between sparkle and the mysterious organisation. These interactions, that deep male voice reminded me of scenes from horror films, such as ‘Scream.’ It added to the mysterious, and ultimately ominous, nature of The Substance. The elusive nature of the The Substance works well in the film, and, if one were to try and explain it fully, we would probably find ourselves caught in many logic knots. It mystery adds to its attraction, and helps to draw the viewer in. The sentiment that Sparkle and her improved self are one will be discussed in greater detail later. Sparkle’s ‘better version’ of herself is named Sue.
When Sparkle uses the substance, she does so in the bathroom and is nude. The clinical nature of the white tiled bathroom and her nudity are reminiscent of a hospital birth. This is fitting, as Sue crawls out of her back. Sue is almost ejected, in a strange birth that is in some ways similar, but also different, to a vaginal birth or caesarean. Sparkle also rests in a foetal position, again reinforcing the idea of birth. The physical ejection of Sue from Sparkle’s back foreshadows Sparkle’s later rejection of Sue. Sue, crawling out of Sparkle’s back, evokes the phrase ‘stabbed in the back.’ Later, Sue will do this, as she does not respect the balance. The violence enacted on Sparkle’s body as Sue emerges does not directly resemble the action of a stab but foreshadows and reinforces the idea that betrayal is imminent. Sparkle cannot see what is happening behind her, she is metaphorically and literally blind to it. She does not know what she is getting herself into and does not fully realise what has occurred until a week later when it is her turn to take over.
Sue auditions to join Sparkle’s network and impresses Harvey. Sue is markedly different from Sparkle, and not just because she is more youthful. Sue often wears pastels, in contrast to Sparkle’s darker blues, and is much gigglier. She frequently sports heart or star shaped earrings and sometimes wears her hair in a high pony. She reminded me of Ariana Grande, and my sister remarked that her jewellery looks like it’s from Claire’s Accessories. Sue is more girlish, which to some means more feminine, and by some, I mean Harvey and the men at the network. They are taken in by her childish innocence and naivete, and Harvey praises her for appearing ‘pure of heart.’ Without saying it, he is drawn to her because of what he perceives to be virginal qualities, girlishness and innocence. Sue is almost a blank canvas for all these older men at the network to project on. The male gaze that they hold dictates that she is virginal and innocent, and this is the reason why they like her – they feel like they can control her. In their eyes, she does not fall into the offensive and sexist category of ‘damaged goods,’ she is undamaged and untouched. All these male onlookers want to be the first.
There is one shot of her strolling down the street, sucking a lollipop and wearing sunglasses. It is reminiscent of the film poster of Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 adaptation of ‘Lolita.’ This quick frame fits the idea that this young woman is about to enter a world where she is going to be continuously preyed on.
Sue’s workout ‘Pump It Up’ is hardly a gruelling workout. There’s more hip gyration than hip thrusts. The network is blatantly trying to sexualise Sue, as has been the case with many a young female star, such as Ariana Grande or Britney Spears. During a later ‘Pump It Up’ a bulge pushes out of Sue’s right buttock. Those in the gallery asked to run it back, and conveniently there is one camera permanently angled at Sue’s buttocks. The crew gather in front of a screen to watch the footage back in slow motion, and much like real life, they are all male. Sue, and previously Sparkle, are constantly being objectified by all men in their life, and said men shield their blatant ogling by claiming that it is in a professional capacity. This scene feels very relevant especially considering the MeToo Movement.
The agreement is that when Sparkle gets seven days, Sue gets seven day, something which Sue promptly begins to disrespect. Even though it has been stated that both women are one and the same, it is so easy to forget that they are… because they are literally played by two completely different people. Sparkle refers to Sue as a ‘selfish bitch.’ It’s a real meta moment, as she is referring to herself. Obviously to the character it feels separate and looks separate as they are two different physical bodies. As Sue continues to disrespect the agreement, Sparkle begins to age rapidly, originally spreading from only one side of her body. The idea of two women, one old, one young, is physically represented by Sparkle’s body. One half of her is youthful, the other old and wrinkled. She is physically two halves of one woman at different stages of her life – the irony is that the two halves of women that she represents is representative of her current predicament. Demi’s hatred for another woman due to their youth speaks to the idea of female competition and resentment… it’s like Snow White and the Evil Queen.
Speaking of the Evil Queen, Sparkle then descends into stereotypical mad old spinster mode. While watching Sue on TV, Sparkle mocks her while cooking. She waddles around the kitchen, with grey unkempt hair and ferociously cooks ingredients in a frying pan that sparks and catches fire. She reads in her recipe book, as if she is reading from a book of spells and narrates that she next must ‘eviscerate the turkey.’ ‘Eviscerate’ means the removal of internal organs. Sue was birthed from Sparkle, and although no one removed her from Sparkle’s body, she came from it, in the same way that offal comes from the animal that it was originally housed in. While eviscerating a literal turkey, Sparkle wants to eviscerate her personal turkey – Sue. Sparkle’s wrenching of the offal out of the Turkey references Sue’s violent and bloody birth. Sparkle also screams while doing this, and this aggressive form of penetration into a passive body is reminiscent of sexual violence. It is quite an unsettling scene.
Many aspects of the female experience are referenced within the film, such as Sue’s birth. Later in the film, when needing a booster of Sparkle’s spinal fluid, Sue runs into the bathroom whilst suffering from a nosebleed. The stress of the situation makes her increasingly irritable, and her boyfriend, upon seeing the blood, jokes that she is irritable because it is her time of the month. He makes light of a serious situation, by concluding that Sue is overacting because she is on her period. It is incredibly dismissive.
There are plenty of examples throughout literature and film that suggest that the root cause of all women’s problems is their period. As it is seen as the gap between girlhood and womanhood it is a significant event, but certain works endow it with negativity. The opening scene of ‘Carrie’ references this, as Carrie getting her period is an incredibly traumatic experience and sets the tone for the whole novel. She had no supernatural experience before this event, her period offsets this chain and eventual death.
Sparkle decides that enough is enough and decides to put an end to Sue. The lethal injection is labelled as a ‘Termination.’ If this is not a direct reference to abortion, then I do not know what is. It could be argued that as Sue physically emerged from Sparkle, she is her offspring, her child. Sparkle is debating whether to abort her, the only difference is, Sue is a fully grown woman at this point, not in her womb. Perhaps because Sue is physically present, Sparkle cannot carry out the termination.
She realises that she needs Sue, she needs her youth, ‘you have to come back,’ she says. Visually, it is literally an old woman begging for the revival of her youth. She recognises that once women lose their youth, they are discarded, and she is desperate for it back. She is then discarded and dispatched by Sue when she awakes. It is quite horrible to see an old frail woman being brutally murdered… ageism is represented from all angles in this film.
Fast forward to the end of the film, when Sue makes her New Years Eve appearance. After being half terminated, and then injecting herself with some spinal fluid, she morphs into something unrecognisable. Sue wears a giant blue chiffon dress, proving that, no matter how you dress your body up, it is still going to change, and age. Sometimes we do not have control over Mother Nature, and when you try, Mother Nature can bite back and turn you into Monstro Elisasue.
As her body continues to mutate, a breast pops out of the side of her head, squelching onto the stage. It is probably the first time an audience has shied away from the appearance of a female breast, something regarded as beautiful is now deemed as repulsive. In everybody’s panic, Elisasue is pushed under a studio light. She is placed under the spotlight, her body scrutinised by the audience, just as how women in the public eye are scrutinised by everybody. She protests that she is the ‘same’ as she was before. The older versions of us and the younger ones are the same, society just does not view us that way.
In the end, the Elisasue breaks down, forming a mass of flesh with Elisabeth Sparkle’s original face at the centre. She crawls onto her start on the walk of fame, and eventually melts away. She is then cleaned up in the morning. She is forever to be a face on a paving slab, trodden on by society, a star that once brought her recognition is now her graveyard. Despite her best efforts, Elisabeth Sparkle and Sue have both been discarded by a misogynistic and patriarchal society.
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