In the pursuit of youth and beauty, you rob yourself.
That’s the most basic message in the Substance. The very least you can get from it.
But we can expand on that, can’t we?
The disposal of aging women in our society, the need to meet male standards for women’s beauty, the men in position of power reducing women to meat used to titillate an audience, perhaps even a touch of envy for the youth from a mother’s standpoint… we’ve got it all!
And it’s all lurking behind extreme closeups of self-harm, the jiggle of bodies, literally showing the audience how it equates women to meat. The cinematography is bright and vibrant, focused and pointed, and I could not look away. Literally, I was just horrified and fascinated. It offers a lot of shit to chew on for people like me.
It’s visceral.
One of my favorite things is the visual language. The use of repetition to express the concept of multiplication is amazing. Tile work, repetitive lines, patterns that repeat themselves— it’s a nod to what the Substance itself does, where it multiplies someone. In the instance of tilework, it all coems together to make one cohesive whole, again echoing the Substance: Remember you are one.
There’s also the emptiness. It feels so empty, these places— even inside of Sparkle’s home. The place is a shrine to vanity and loneliness. The kitchen is tiny, bearing a single top table with one uncomfortable looking chair, showing the lack of need for domesticity and the lack of other people in the home. The living room has one comfortable chair and is arranged like a showroom. There’s no trace of person actually living there. Everything is dedicated to these large screens: the enormous image of Sparkle in its alcove, the television off to the side, and an enormous window that almost counts as an antagonist in the film because of the view it offers of Sue’s success and her youth, literally replacing Sparkle. It’s all she sees.
Even outside the apartment, where most of the movie takes place, reality is far away. It’s an idealized version of Hollywood, with straight palms and sharp, bright lighting that emphasizes straight lines and sparkling otherness. The set design is alien and familiar at the same time, always feeling like a confining element.
A big thing that hit me throughout the viewing was how she didn’t care at all for her other self. From the very beginning, she has no compassion towards herself. She’s taking from herself to trade for something she feels has been lost to her. On hatching (I’m calling it that, cuz c’mon, the egg? the way she bursts forth? Hatching) she leaves herself on the floor, naked and cold and bloody. The aftercare is minimal, just what’s prescribed in the directionless box from the Substance folks. The bodies are placed in a lightless room, tossed aside like clothing. Elisabeth is packed away and her only outings are reduced to picking up another box for her fix.
The product design for the Substance is interesting to me. It’s bare bones. It’s secretive. It’s clinical. There are no directions. They have the world’s worst ad:
She shows up at this nasty little area to sneak into a place where she basically has to lower herself literally and figuratively to get into, walks into this spooky ass room that exists in a space between buildings, and scooters on out with her package. The smooth, pretty packaging has cards but no direction regarding the use of anything. She has to just hope this weird backroom substance (sorry, Substance) works the way she has worked out. The hotline is just the voiceover dude getting pissed off because she’s very much abusing the drug. She views herself differently on and off the drug, not willing to face the reality of it… woof. Getting into the epidemic of drugs here too!
(mops brow)
The ending is fascinating. We have a feeling of a genre shift, from the lonely, quiet suffering into a public breakdown. No one knows what Elizabeth and Sue were going through, no one knows what pushes her to that point, and her breakdown immediately results in an outcry. This is something you may have noticed about people on the limelight— perfection, fading, and then what appears to be an absolute break with reality. The audience at the New Years show is at fault, pointing fingers, demanding consequences, mimicking a reaction that’s more appropriate in Frankenstein than to a woman on stage (even if she has transformed into a monster through her own desperation)! The blood splatter (this industry getting literally soaked in blood) and the slow collapse into just her. Elisabeth’s face unable to speak, seeing everything, mortified but unable to stop the breakdown until finally she finds herself right at the beginning… awesome.
And then the day goes on. No one knows, in the end. No one acknowledges it. The only thing that makes it worth it is… she felt it in the end. The… heh. The Sparkle.
Right after finishing, I needed to look at more. Learn about the process, how the actresses felt, all of that.
I encourage people to watch this. However… the reason I didn’t ask Karen to watch it with me… was the shrimp scene. The closeup of Harvey eating shrimp… even Demi Moore says as much in an interview about the movie.
And here’s a fantastic analysis of the cinematography!
A brief interview with the director:
And a much longer interview breaking down scenes:
