Coralie Fargeat’s film The Substance is a deafening cry against the objectification of the human body in our modern-day culture. The plot's title refers to the plot's mechanism for exploring its theme: a magical means of restoring lost youth that allows users to create idealised versions of themselves. As the film develops, we discover that the required injections of the substance must go into the head.
There is a cultural metaphor here. It is a comment on a society in which endless images and perceptions of beauty are pumped into people’s minds about everything—from happiness to health, ideas of attractiveness, sex appeal, love, acceptance and youthfulness.
This seems to be the true focus of The Substance, which nabbed the Best Screenplay Award at the latest Cannes Film Festival. Unlike David Cronenberg's The Fly—in which the grotesque effects of gluttony drive the transformation of organic matter—The Substance never reveals the true purpose behind the project. The film is not concerned with the origins of this discovery. It portrays a secret society where its members—those subject to the experiment—are identified only by numbers.
What matters to the narrative is what happens next. It poses a simple "what if?" question. Without addressing the plausibility of the invention itself, the film is rooted in the illusion of belief.
The premise is this: what if you could split into two people, your present self and your younger self? How would you live together? Could you function as one person, resisting temptation and balancing the whims of both identities? Or would excessive and blind self-interest lead to your own undoing?
Philosophy and metaphor
The Substance gradually unpeels its myriad layers of meaning. The word "substance" shifts from its literal association with "matter" to its deeper, philosophical synonym: "essence." The film questions the essence of human existence and—more specifically—the essence of feminism in the modern world.
In one of her best roles, Demi Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, a washed-up star who has become a shadow of her former self. Her star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame is cracked, faded, and covered in dirt, mirroring her own decline. Sparkle keeps a large portrait in her living room that reminds her of the vibrant girl she once was.
The irony, however, is that Demi Moore does not appear old in a way that invites pity or regret. She still embodies beauty and grace. It is clear that Fargeat intentionally avoids portraying ageing as something ugly or shameful.
Sparkle’s drive to experience 'the substance' of the film’s title does not come from a fear of ageing or losing her physical appeal but rather from the realisation that she has become a consumable commodity and must appeal to the workings of the marketplace.
It's evident that Sparkle doesn’t need to work; she seems wealthy—at least based on the success of her past career. Her only motivation, then, for restoring her youth is her deep identification with her public persona. Her fame, image, and star power have become integral to her sense of self.
When the producer of her home exercise show, played by Dennis Quaid, decides it’s time to replace her with a younger woman to boost ratings, Sparkle faces an existential crisis. She finds herself unable to exist outside the identity that stardom and the media have shaped for her over the years.
This feeling of being lost—of having no meaning beyond her public image—is exacerbated by the realisation that Sparkle is entirely alone, without family or friends. Her world is limited to those who maintain her appearance and those who care for her skin and wardrobe. She is, in a sense, a product—an object on the beauty market.
