The Substance is a film about the choices that we make and their physical and moral repercussions.
Elizabeth Sparkle (played by Demi Moore) is a well known aerobics personality on television who is liked by all. This love is tempered by the fact that she is fifty years old and her age effectively renders her obsolete within a media industry that prefers their image makers to be young, sexy and pliable to suggestion.
Through a series of unfortunate events, she has an accident then ends up losing her job, she finds the substance of the title or more accurately, it finds her. The USB stick being the seed for her future transformations (it provides information on how to obtain the substance after playing to the viewer's perceived feelings of inadequacy).
The substance effectively allows the creation of another perfect you, noticibly younger, but the one important lesson is that you and the other you are one. Also you take it in turns to look after the other you as you are each allowed seven days to live your life, the other you ends up effectively unconscious for a week and has to be kept fed.
Now the first thing that the viewer notices is the location where the substance is picked up (refills also have to be picked up from there too). On the outside, it is an alley which has seen far better days, but once the key card activates the entrance, the buyer enters an incredibly white and modern room with essentially lots of P.O. Boxes. These are again accessed with the key card. You take the box and follow the instructions when you get home but importantly, with one later exception, you go and pick up the drug (the later occasion involves a home delivery, the reason for this, I won't spoil). It's always your choice. Thinking back again on the crucial juxtaposition of the poverty and grime of the alley and the purity of the pick up point, the film is possibly reiterating the paradox of everyday life, we are always one step away from an infection, virus or disease of one sort or another, despite the rituals of cleanliness that we undertake.
Anyway, once Elizabeth begins the process after losing her job etc, Sue (played by Margaret Qualley) is born.
The birth of Sue is probably the most shocking sequence in the film. She effectively emerges from Elizabeth's back. An earlier sequence in the film involves a doctor after Elizabeth's accident effectively checking her flesh around the spinal area in the same way that you may assess the suitability of cattle or a piece of meat by pinching/massaging the flesh. This act is clearly to ascertain her viability for the substance but we are not aware of this fact at that point.
I was curious by the decision to use the back for the birth. Obviously, most regularly, births are vaginal with the exception of Caesarean and other births that may require surgery. But from a narrative perspective, the speed of the metabolic growth of the perfect you results in the need for a large enough orifice to facilitate the emergence of an adult human being into the world. I am sure that there is a symbolic significance to this idea. From a religious perspective, Eve was apparently created out of one of Adam's ribs, but I strongly feel that the back marks the part of the body that you are least familiar with, the unseen (except in reflection).
Another idea that struck me is how similar the casting off of Elizabeth's body for Sue to be born resembles the imago stage when an insect metamorphosis into its final adult form (although, in this case, Elizabeth remains alive and it's not the final stage in Elizabeth's development as we shall later see).
Once Sue is 'born', Elizabeth who provides the matrix body in their symbiotic relationship at this point, is then effectively rendered semi-unconscious for seven days, so Sue has to suture the birth wound and then perform other clinical processes (lots of injections to make sure that Elizabeth doesn't die). The same is true after seven days when the two switch (Sue becomes semi-unconscious and Elizabeth is responsible for caring for Sue).
From a psychological perspective, it is interesting how the first time, Elizabeth in her semi-unconscious state sees Sue, is in a mirror. In Lacan's psychoanalytic theory, the first time a child identifies that it is different from the world outside it and from its parents etc rather than maintaining the narcissitic belief that everything is part of the child's life revolves around the so-called 'mirror stage' in a child's development. In this film, it's a literal mirror.
Sue is the perfect version of Elizabeth and effectively ends up replacing her in her television slot. A new and intriguingly, even more sexualised version of Elizabeth's previous aerobics show.
Without giving everything away and returning this blog to the themes that interested me, the use of the substance goes very badly wrong. The message, 'You are one' goes unheeded.
At its most pertinent, this is a film that questions societal assumptions about beauty and even more crucially, how we co-exist with our perceived notions of our past selves. Throughout the film, Elizabeth is assailed by images of her past self looking beautiful and younger. Even Sue, the new version of her is simply an idealised version of who Elizabeth once perceived herself to be. The links between this film and 'The Portrait Of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde are being liberally explored everywhere but let's return to one of the underlying themes of the film, is it possible to integrate perceived memories of the younger you with the present you. Are you the same person, despite the physical changes? Do we ever really change psychologically?
I suspect that the lesson provided by the film is that the changes are possibly not as huge as we may believe them to be. Our childhood needs still inform our adult desires. Those attributes of Sue that the viewer may find despicable, such as the need to be the centre of attention even if Elizabeth has to suffer for the vanity, is probably no different to Elizabeth's past behaviour patterns. After all, Elizabeth is 'one' with Sue.
The final transformation of Elizabeth and Sue into something so-called 'monstrous' becomes a metaphor for the importance of consolidating our understanding of our past sense of self with our current self. The merged form is potentially the most beautiful because it has the greatest capacity for becoming something new. A point of acceptance. Reaching desperately for the past rather than allowing for the fact that our younger selves are still part of us, helps to instigate many a mid-life crisis (unfortunately, it doesn't work out in this film. Elizabeth becomes something else).
Ultimately, like Elizabeth Sparkle, what will remain of us will be signs, signifiers and memories in other peoples' minds. The star on the Walk of Fame may soon become an inscription on a piece of stone.
If this film has one coherent moral, it is to live your life freely without the need for external agents or objects of change. Your mind is the focal point for learning and change; your body, a transient, ever mutating extension of the unknowable forces that drive us. Respect your body but more crucially, nurture your mind.
If 'you are one', let one matter.
Barry Watt - 27th September 2024.
Afterword.
The Substance is currently screening in a number of cinemas and is definitely worth seeing. It was directed by Coralie Fargeat. This blog only touches the surface of the many subjects I could have explored in relation to the film. Intriguingly, when I stumbled on the idea of the imago, in connection with the metamorphosis of insects, I also learnt that there is a form of relationship therapy called Imago Relationship Therapy developed by Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt, which explores the notion that we may select partners based on childhood needs and views etc. As such, this form of therapy explores present issues in relation to past memories and events etc. In many respects, using this psychoanalytic model also opens up this beautifully constructed film, so off you go!
The quotes from the film and the ideas/plot elements are copyright to the individuals and companies connected with the film.
Lacan's 'mirror stage' is like many psychoanalytic concepts subject to continual debate. Jacques Lacan first posited his theory at the Fourteenth International Psychoanalytical Congress at Marienbad in 1936. He developed the theory throughout his life. I am not an expert and I apologise if my distillation of the theory has simplified it. Lacan is quite a difficult writer to understand, so possibly, get yourself an introductory book to his life and works. I am working from memory and a brief scan of Wikipedia (Thanks, Wikipedia).
'The Portrait of Dorian Gray' was written by Oscar Wilde and is well worth reading but does not offer very much in connection with this film.
BW.
Photograph.
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The Substance promotional poster.
Used to illustrate the blog but used
without permission).
BW
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