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But the caveats are that Elisabeth and her younger self – Sue, who quickly becomes a TV star – need to take turns being in the world for a week, then being at home, rejuvenating for a week. Sue (played by Margaret Qualley) begins to take liberties, Elisabeth seeks revenge, and grotesquerie ensues. Elisabeth begins to dramatically age, resembling a furious, hairless, gnarled gnome. Demi Moore is fantastic.
Many have blasted the film. They are right to say that, in it, the female body is both exploited and made repulsive. There are countless close-ups of Sue’s sweaty breasts and perfectly round ass. And Elisabeth, once she feels ugly, old and washed-up, goes mad and becomes monstrous, a familiar trope known as hagsploitation.
I kept wondering how much The Substance cost, and if an addiction would bankrupt Elisabeth, but we never find out. The billions that women willingly, happily, repeatedly spend on often unevidenced anti-ageing treatments could fund entire economies. Men, too, under the guise of “looksmaxxing”.
American journalist Paula Froelich has detailed how this film captures the horror she feels at growing old, and enduring constant procedures, including burning skin and leaving slices of eyelids on surgeons’ floors. She writes in The Free Press: “I applaud The Substance because it does not sugarcoat … It depicts the bind in which women find ourselves: the pressure we’re under, the ghastly battle we wage daily with ourselves, and the horrific ways in which we torture our bodies and our minds in the search for youth, success, and acceptance.”
Illustration: Dionne Gain Credit:
I get it. But does this really reflect all of us? Does it have to be a ghastly battle? I’d like to propose another reading, one in which women pull wind into their lungs over a lifetime, iron into their spines, certainty into their gazes. There are many alternatives to the path of cutie to crone. Think of the glory of Marie Curie, Susan Sontag, Dorothea Lange, Mary Oliver, Judith Wright, Toni Morrison, Helen Garner, Nauiyu elder Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Bauman. Women who have understood what we think of the world is far more interesting than what it thinks of us. This film outlines the problem, but not the alternative.
‘It depicts … the ghastly battle we wage daily with ourselves, and the horrific ways in which we torture our bodies and our minds in the search for youth, success, and acceptance.’
Journalist Paula Froelich
This may be because, as Fargeat said in an interview, she believes beauty standards “somehow stay forever on your shoulder”. She says: “You can tame them. You can make them less loud. You can put them to sleep for some time, but they are still your strongest inner enemy that you have to deal with, and that’s what I wanted to show … the reality of how society still works and what we have to live with. To show how violent it is, but also to show how difficult it is to make that change on our own.”
Sigh. She wants women instead to know that, “if you don’t feel good, it’s not your fault; everything around you is responsible for making you feel like that. So, hopefully, if we see some change in society, it will help us all get out of this jail that we have built for ourselves.”
The timidity of this statement contrasts to the fury in the film. And the frustration of women who like to think and talk about something other than discussion of their own beauty, or lack thereof, or decay. Surely one way out is, if not to turn the mirror to the wall, to turn away from it.
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I couldn’t help wondering if Elisabeth, instead of imbibing toxic liquid, perhaps needed a few good friends, who would be growing older alongside her, maybe a therapist, some books and definitely a hobby, something like ocean swimming? Something that forces her to stop looking at her reflection and start looking around her, at others, at the natural world, at the absurdity of things.
Because company makes everything endurable. Sit down with a group of close, banter-driven, loyal female friends and ask them about ageing: before long, probably within a minute, they will be roaring with laughter, wiping their eyes, raising their glasses and getting on with it.
Julia Baird is a journalist, author and regular columnist. Her latest book is Bright Shining: how grace changes everything.
