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Lacking Substance

by Aliki Bitsakakis

While trying to deconstruct the notion that women are more than their looks, The Substance just proved that we are. Which is heartbreaking, unjust, and infuriating. I was actually shocked a man did not write and direct this film, with all the excuses to show a woman’s body with no real bearing on the story or meaning behind those choices, and the clear misguided image of a woman’s experience in this modern age. 

The Substance follows Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), an actress who just turned fifty and is fired from her job as an 80s-style TV workout instructor. She receives a mysterious offer for a drug that will create a younger, better version of her. The catch is that she has to switch between versions every seven days. So, she does it, and young, hot Sue (Margaret Qualley) pops out and does all the jobs that Elisabeth is now too old to do. Conflict arises when Sue keeps sneaking extra days from Elisabeth, and the two versions of the same person start resenting each other. As Sue takes more days, the physical effects are seen on Elisabeth, true Dorian-Grey style, until she eventually becomes a monster.

Firstly, I feel this movie inadvertently perpetuated the outdated ideas of women that they pretended to dismantle. 

Elisabeth had no personality. Aside from knowing she’s fifty and she won an Oscar years ago, we don’t know anything about her. She has no friends or family, and in scenes with her producer (Dennis Quaid), she barely speaks. By the end, I don’t think she learned her lesson – that she should be content in her body and welcome aging with a positive attitude – she only ended the program because Sue kept stealing days. Anyone would have ended the program at that point, with the gruesome physical effects making it impossible for Elisabeth to even leave the house. This was not a decision that felt unique to Elisabeth’s character. 

By giving Elisabeth no personality or character development, the film perpetuated the very idea they attempted to break down, that women are one-dimensional figures. Your audience will not inherently be on your side. By giving us nothing, we felt nothing as Elisabeth’s life spiraled out of control. And by the end, we saw this woman, only as a body, who lost all her worth as her physical appearance deteriorated. 

Next problem, this world was not realistic. 

The stylistic choice to have everyone speak like a robot, and for this world to resemble a cardboard movie set, did not bother me at first. I thought it was a cheeky way to show how ridiculous some things we say to women are. However, as the movie dragged on, this stylistic choice got a little stale, and rid the film of the opportunity of connecting with audiences by presenting realistic situations in which women are valued for only their looks. In some films, a reality like this that feels very fantasy and plastic, would work. For example, The Truman Show is all about the fabricated world, which mirrors the fabrication of what we see in the media. And having the protagonist realize that this world is plastic allowed the audience to connect with him. I feel that The Substance suffered with this stylistic choice, because every moment felt so flat, doing a disservice to the serious issue at hand. Exploring how women are viewed in society and placing that exploration in a cardboard world made me feel that the issues at hand were being diluted and mocked. I felt like my experience as a woman was dumbed down in easy-to-understand bites, ridding my life of all nuance and complexity. None of it felt real, and I didn’t even feel plot points adhered to the laws of this created world. Why did Elisabeth, once she switched to Sue, decide to host the same 80s-style workout show? Did she not have higher aspirations? What decade is this film actually set in? And why does she care to host a New Year’s Eve broadcast? Why did they choose Sue, who’s still a new star? Speaking of which, did no one ever ask Sue for a last name? They sent her flowers, clearly they see she has the same address as Elisabeth Sparkle – no questions about that? And the trailer for the drug was very vague and creepy, I cannot understand how that encouraged Elisabeth to get the drug. I use the word get instead of buy, because she never bought it. No money was exchanged. Why? What’s this company’s deal, what are they getting out of this? It would have made more sense if the drug was very expensive, so the company is targeting older, washed-out actresses. That simple addition would center the story on women in the media, and encourage the audience to think about how we talk about famous women, how we judge them, scrutinize their every move, and imagine the toll that takes on the real individual. 

If this film truly believed that women were more than their appearances, and that women more often than men are reduced to their appearances, why is it that during the Pump It Up taping, which had both male and female dancers, we only got close-ups of the women’s bodies and not the men’s? This movie largely felt like an excuse to show extreme close-ups of women’s butts, while simultaneously feeling like a second grader made this film, who can only think of butts as the sexy part of a woman’s body. Trying to have a conversation about the commodification of women’s bodies, and then not having a moment where a woman has to show Dennis Quaid more than her butt in a swimsuit, seemed really juvenile to me. Not that you shouldn’t be tasteful about what you show, but this story called for a deeper exploration about what it is exactly about women’s bodies that we fear, that we find threatening, attractive, different from men (men have butts too!). The only time we saw more skin was when Elisabeth and Sue were totally naked in the bathroom, when they switched. It felt like an odd choice to me, to include full-frontal nudity, but to not use it in any way to further the themes of the movie, because they were alone in that room, not under any pressure or male gaze. Nudity in films need to be done carefully, to ensure that the commodification of women is not furthered. 

I also felt that the themes of this film were too general. They spoke about a woman’s body, but not about a specific element. Maybe Elisabeth should have been obsessed with skincare, like the novel Rouge. Maybe it’s about her hair, bridging Rapunzel parallels. If it’s about age – which I guess it was because the story began on Elisabeth’s fiftieth birthday, which is also the day she lost her job (although, it just seemed like the show was ending – also why did they hand her a cardboard box of her belongings, as if she worked in an office?) – then actually take a second to talk about the parts of aging that society uses to condemn women, such as wrinkles, stretch marks, weight, grey hair. None of that was mentioned, it was just about her being arbitrarily old. 

There was no nuance in this film, no interesting take on female issues. The jumping off point was that society hates when women get old. Your central idea does not have to be totally unique. In fact, centering your story around a universal truth/experience will bridge that empathetic link to your viewers. The issue is that that central idea did not develop. For example, Poor Things asked the question: Since women are shamed from birth about their bodies, behaviours, and thoughts, what would it look like if we had a woman who was born without shame? The thesis of Poor Things begins by thinking about a general statement, about how women are shamed by society, and then poses a situation that would explore an alternate reality, and opens the possibilities for further nuanced exploration. What transpires through that film is creative, emotional, and representative of real issues even though it is set in a fantasy style. The Substance’s jumping off point was, society hates when women get old. The film then asked the question, what would happen if a woman created a younger, better version of herself? You don’t have to see the movie to know the answer: society would like the younger one better.

And lastly, there were quite a few plot holes. Do Elisabeth and Sue share a consciousness or not? The drug people reminded her multiple times that they are one, yet they were constantly angry at each other as if they were not one? Was the whole “you are one” thing just a metaphorical sentence, while they were truly two different people that just needed each other to survive? Also, if Elisabeth was upset with Sue for stealing days, why didn’t she do the same thing? Also, a moment that really confused me was the man that Elisabeth met that was also using the drug. Up until that point, I thought the film revolved around women and how their aging is seen in the media. When the man was introduced, I thought we would explore how aging men are seen in society. But we didn’t. His appearance was only meant to warn Elisabeth about the harmful effects of the drug. And then he is never mentioned again. I would have liked to get more insight on what this experience is like for a man, or, I would have changed this character to be another woman, maybe even an aging Hollywood starlet to show Elisabeth that she has been targeted for her money and status (and in that case she should actually be paying for this drug).  

The Substance was a body horror excuse. As a woman, I’m disappointed that yet again, my experience in this world has been simplified. If I had a 17.5 million dollar budget, I would take a few more minutes thinking about the nuance of the female experience. And I would try a little harder to cover up my plot holes. And I would spend less time on intense body horror and sensationalist naked moments, and more time on writing a complex story that hit the audience with universal truths, and made them walk away rethinking how they speak about women on a daily basis. 
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