October 14, 2024, 6:31 pm | Read time: 5 minutes
When Brad Pitt gets gray hair, it’s sexy – and he may be offered more “mature” roles, but not necessarily fewer. Unfortunately, the situation is different for actresses: their bodies have an expiry date. The new movie “The Substance” takes the issue of age discrimination to heart. STYLEBOOK has already seen this horror film and recognized four important lessons.
Billed as an “insanely entertaining and relentlessly satirical Cannes sensation,” horror enthusiasts are eagerly anticipating the release of French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat’s work in theaters. Honored with the Best Screenplay award at Cannes 2024, The Substance is replete with intense scenes that demand a strong stomach. But above all, this two-and-a-half-hour horror will give us new perspectives on our own lives – and teach us to love getting older.
Overview
This is what “The Substance” is about
Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) has a star on the Walk of Fame and is an Oscar winner. She has achieved fame – yet her A-list celebrity status has gathered dust. Just after her 50th birthday, Sparkle is fired as an aerobics dancer on television—the reason: someone younger and simply more beautiful was to take her place. While hospitalized, she receives a mysterious number, which leads her to The Substance. It is a drug that literally gives her a second dream body.
After successfully administering the substance herself, Elisabeth meets her younger, better version and names her Sue (Margaret Qualley). Her strikingly attractive body double applies for Sparkle’s former position and is enthusiastically welcomed as the new fitness presenter. However, the elixir of youth comes with a catch: Sparkle has to change her body every seven days. One week she is allowed to spend in the body of Sue in her mid-twenties, and one week she has to spend as 50-year-old Elisabeth. If she fails to do so, her physical decay is accelerated. Unfortunately, the allure of youth proves to be addictive…
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These are the lessons we can learn from “The Substance”
First of all, a little warning: there are spoilers ahead. We won’t reveal the end of the movie, but we will discuss a few key scenes. Analyzing them can inspire a healthier approach to aging and other insecurities!
Living in the present
It is noticeable that Elisabeth is increasingly unhappy with her original body, and her little trips into the younger Sue’s shell are getting longer and longer. However, this leads to an accelerated decay of Elisabeth’s 50-year-old body. She is punished for wanting to live in the past. And more: her future is damaged by her eternal flirtation with her younger version.
Instead of living in the moment, Elisabeth loses herself in the past or despairs at the thought of the future. She overlooks the fact that her present circumstances are far from dire. So, what is there to run away from? The past is passé, and fretting about it only creates unnecessary worry lines!
Pleasure comes before aesthetics
Elisabeth Sparkle is getting dressed up for a date when the situation suddenly escalates. After applying a red lipstick that looks great on her, she smudges it all over. We notice that her standards of what she should look like are so high that she is so unhappy with her appearance that she ends up never showing up for the date.
Regrettably, Sparkle not only leaves a dejected man sitting solo in a restaurant but also forfeits a splendid evening for herself. No amount of perfectionism and nagging about our appearance should ever stop us from going out and experiencing something – our time here is simply too short for that.
Check who’s judging
Elisabeth experiences profound humiliation at the hands of her boss, Harvey (Dennis Quaid). Their power dynamic is such that Sparkle internalizes the sexist remarks. At the same time, Harvey’s character in The Substance is portrayed as an unpleasant creep who can never live up to the demands he makes of his female employees. Moreover, he himself is no stranger to the passage of time…
Perhaps Elisabeth should have paused for a moment when criticizing to think: “Who are you to judge?”. In real life, criticism should always be viewed in a differentiated way. You should carefully consider who is judging you and how close you want to let them get to you. Do you admire this person? Is the person more competent in this area and even authorized to give advice? If not, rise above it.
Don’t be cruel to yourself
Elisabeth has created her second, younger version, Sue, from her own corpus but doesn’t understand that they are the same person despite advice from the substance manufacturers. So Sue starts mocking Elisabeth, putting her – or rather herself – down. The result is a self-destructive despair that destroys both bodies, united in one soul.
The Substance thus creates a valuable image from which we can learn a lot. Self-hatred is a dialogue with oneself—a particularly harsh one. We are crueler to ourselves than we would ever be to others. Life presents us with enough challenges and grievances to deal with on a daily basis. In the midst of this, it is important to at least give yourself a little love – you will age anyway.