Da Freaking Substance

I’m back. Briefly. Just for some light review and analysis.

Picture me like an aged movie star. I’m babbling on about something I worked on decades ago (months), projects that never came to light (blog posts I never finished), and how people used to adore me (upwards of 5 people clicked on my last post). I’m basically literally Elisabeth Sparkle.

I saw someone on Letterboxd describe the constructed Los Angeles of The Substance as Kubrickian, something I find apt and also laud as the best thing about it. I take no pleasure in reporting that Dennis Quaid is really excellent in his turn as a comically-grotesque television executive. From the moment his face went uncomfortably close to the camera perched atop a urinal while he was using it, I knew this movie was going to be off-putting in a way I enjoyed.

It is, however, remarkably shallow in a way that reflects its subject but still leaves much to be desired. Thematically, there is so little to discuss with this one that it drives me to nitpick, to look for something personal that could trigger anything resembling an intellectual relationship with this movie. It absolutely is enough for art to be just fun to watch, but striking a thoughtful cord always elevates it.

I can’t imagine a person alive who has never had an issue with their body and aging, and I would largely attribute that to mass media. I had the uniquely awful experience of being a fat girl and a fat teenage girl, which really alienated me from the Elisabeth Sparkle character. She’s very one-dimensional–she literally doesn’t have family, friends, or hobbies–and her struggle in life is that she is no longer young and beautiful (and of course Demi Moore is still beautiful, I’m only saying that because that’s what the movie wants me to think). I’ve never really been young and beautiful. So fuck me I guess!

Of course, the world of The Substance is deeply misogynistic. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to understand Elisabeth’s vanity as a product of her environment or a reflection of her as an active participant. She’s a victim either way, but I find the latter more compelling. She is Sue and Sue is her, after all. In her heyday, Elisabeth might’ve had the same thoughts about older and non-conventionally attractive women and exercised the same cruelty, potentially in her head or even aloud. I think her character would be more interesting if that was fully at play–if it was explicit that she had somehow maintained that status quo that ultimately harmed her–and that the film would better fit the “feminist” label some have attached to it. I think internalized misogyny and “choice feminism” are the current hot button feminist issues, and this movie could’ve so easily built on that and made itself more interesting. Movies don’t have to be social commentary, I’m really just truffle-hunting.

I’m also unclear on whether or not these attitudes about attractiveness exist purely in The Substance’s film and television industry, Los Angeles more generally, or the movie’s world at large. The film mostly concentrates its bile on women, but, interestingly enough, the character who introduces her to the substance is male. Women are the sole target of the film–Dennis Quaid gets to be a hideous, disgusting career man even though he’s old as dirt and fugly–but the beautiful Demi Moore is cast aside despite years of devotion. Is this movie really only commentary of what we expect in front of the camera? On a basic level, I understand why the young, hot doctor would want to be the young, hot doctor instead of an old, gross doctor, but I thought this film was supposed to be about show business? Young, hot doctor is seeing patients everyday, but he’s not under so much scrutiny about his image that his looks would be of a psychologically-damaging amount of concern to him. He doesn’t have to grin, shake his ass, and be mocked by television executives like Elisabeth. He is presumably not under heavy pressure to look good, so what am I supposed to understand about this movie? He has a conversation with Elisabeth wherein he reveals his hot self is stealing from his ugly self just like Sue is. It completely neutralizes the point being made about women and about show business.

Now, some may consider this a minor gripe, but I also had an issue with the Hollywood star opening. It was a good way to open and a fun way to have the movie come full circle at the end. It’s just that no one gets those when they are young or at the height of their career–they usually come when someone is in a downturn (and I think they usually pay for them themselves, right?). Normally, I wouldn’t mind some sacrifice of realism in service of an artistic purpose, but it incorrectly set me up to think that Elisabeth was an untold years old, that she was already using the substance, and that the world of the movie was going to be a lot more futuristic and Sci-Fi. I was so convinced of this interpretation, especially with her show being very Jane Fonda 1980s, that when Quaid’s character made a derisive joke about her being in King Kong, I wasn’t sure if it was meant to be true or not in the film. When movies open and I have limited expectations, my mind is running wild trying to piece things together in any way it can. It was just a bit hard to ground my expectations again after that. I don’t know if that’s the film's fault–I was just expecting a lot more on multiple levels, partially because of the way people were discussing it. I just had to mention this because I thought the setting was going to be so much more expansive and nontemporal, and while as aforementioned I did enjoy the world of the story, I was a bit let down.

In the same vein, I was also disappointed by the gore. After Hereditary, Longlegs, whatever you can think of, I really need to stop letting Twitter (not calling it by the new name) get me all riled up for nothing. I don’t know. I’m not trying to be edgy, but I do have a high tolerance. I love body horror. I find it incredibly cathartic because of my teenage twauma and years fantasizing about the destruction of my own body, so I really was looking forward to something more from this movie. I think my revulsion has to be based on some sort of connection to the characters, largely because I never watch a movie and forget it’s a movie. To get me to shiver in my seat there need to be some stakes, like a character I like or care about. Otherwise, it might as well be a mindless slasher, and most of those suck ass. In most cases, it’s the sound design that gets me anyways, especially in something like this when the FX just isn’t the best (this is kind of nitpicking–it was passable, but not enough). I think I cringed a bit at some of the scenes, but most of it was just funny.

The most affecting scene in this film is also the one where it majorly lost me. Pretty early in the film, we are introduced to Normal Guy, a former classmate of Elisabeth Sparkle who remembers her before fame and at her height. He doesn’t spew the same bile as Dennis Quaid or any of these other guys and is pretty normal, except for the fact that he strikes up an eager conversation with someone just exiting a hospital. He tells her that she’s always been beautiful, she’s still beautiful, and is otherwise thrilled to see her. Later, when Elisabeth is looking to ground herself before things really go off the rails, she takes him up on his offer to get drinks. Now, she’s obviously doing it because of her ego, not because she is interested in this man for anything beyond the compliments he gives her, but I think that’s fine and in line with her character and her superficial world.

I loved the back and forth as she struggles with her perceived imperfections. I think we’ve all been there, feeling good until sudden uncertainty strikes and we’re adjusting clothes or makeup as the clock ticks down. That’s a bit closer to me now. Growing up, I didn’t even want to raise my hand in class because I didn’t want anyone to look at me. Now, my clothes fit me right and I’m a lot less self-conscious, but I still have reservations about my appearance. I’m fat and I have rosacea. There’s an area of thinning hair on my right temple from a lifetime of ponytails. I have a big nose and small lips, too, but these are secondary afflictions. The point is, I still go out into the world. Elisabeth can’t even do that. Maybe we are meant to understand this as a psychological side effect to the Sue double life that accompanies her physical degradation, but I can’t buy into it because I don’t think that’s all it should be. I wanted Elisabeth to fight back, to realize that her agony comes from within, but she doesn’t really do it. She punishes herself instead–not because she realizes her own role in the sick society she lives in and how she has perpetuated it externally and internally, but because she is still not at all self-aware and remains a victim to her own vanity. If that’s what The Substance is trying to say–that internalized misogyny leads women to ruin themselves, I can almost jive with that. Almost.

The thing is, I’ve had an opposing journey to Elisabeth that fundamentally separates me from her in a divide I can’t get across without more from the film. With Elisabeth, I wanted a mile where it gave an inch. I don’t have a Sue because I’ve never been Sue, and I guess I don’t know what it’s like to be addicted to being conventionally attractive and I never will. I have my vanities and insecurities and have wished and wrought harm upon my body because of them, and this picture still didn’t land.

Long story short–and forget whatever brevity I dreamed of when I started this post–I probably would not take the titular substance.