The 2024 horror-thriller, The Substance, is a sharp jab at Hollywood's obsession with youth and perfection. It is penned by Coralie Fargeat and stars Demi Moore.
The film follows the story of aging actress Elizabeth Sparkle, played by Moore, desperate to stay in the limelight in the world of Hollywood as it unleashes its central narrative through body horror and dark satire.
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With her career flagging, she embarks on an odd, body-transformation journey to regain her youth, a spate of eerie similarities with Moore's life. They are woven with references to cult classics: The Shining, 1980; Videodrome, 1983; Carrie, 1976. All of these both refer to horror history and comment hauntingly on fame.
As David Fear at Rolling Stone noted, Moore gives "the performance of her career," channeling the desperation and vulnerability of the character through her own Hollywood journey of resilience and reinvention.
The Substance has references to iconic horror classics
The Substance weaves in stylistic and thematic homage to horror classics through the use of visual clues and subtle references.
For example, the transformational horror of The Substance finds echoes in the themes of the 1986 horror film The Fly in how Elizabeth Sparkle wishes to transform her physical self into a makeover that closely mimics the grotesque transformation of The Fly.
Like Jeff Goldblum's character who decays in search of the perfect form, Sparkle's journey on The Substance becomes grotesque underlining the danger of pursuit of physical transformation at any cost.
Another movie central to the tone in The Substance is Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980). As Sparkle fends off a younger version of herself down a dimly lit corridor, it's quite an imitation of the now-notorious 'Here's Johnny!' scene from The Shining starring Jack Nicholson.
According to Rolling Stone, this scene depicts Moore's relationship with Hollywood through the fight of her character because it shows the struggle that Moore personally had against the industry standards. Other references are Psycho (1960) and Lost Highway (1997). These add elements of psychological horror to the story.
There is little direct inspiration from the green chemical in Re-Animator (1985). Inner conflicts and paranoia about these old classics circulate within Sparkle, making her feel trapped and delusional when she loses hold of reality.
Parallels between Demi Moore’s career and Elizabeth Sparkle’s journey on The Substance
The movie takes on a whole new meaning when one considers the real-life experiences of Demi Moore. Moore plays Elizabeth Sparkle, a famous actress who, after years of success, feels compelled to undergo drastic measures to retain her youth.
In a recent Cannes interview, Moore admitted that The Substance starkly reflected her career.
“What I loved in what Coralie wrote is that it’s about the male perspective of the idealized woman that we have bought into as [women]… Here, this newer, younger, better version gets an opportunity, and she repeats the same pattern,” she shared.
The story of Hollywood sidelining an older actress resonates with the same undertones that Moore had to deal with. In an interview with Today, Moore said,
"I placed a lot of value on what my body looked like, as being a defining marker of whether I belonged or not, whether I could succeed or not, all of those things, which, again, is a big part of the theme in the film."
This parallelism in The Substance might add to the storyline as it triggers memories in viewers of Moore's fight against fame, expectations, and old age.
Critics noted that this "meta factor" made Moore's performance energized with the depth of lived experience in a system that likely favored her physical appearance over talent.
This could bring some semblance of veracity to Sparkle's helplessness and rage about having to be so rabidly on a crusade in search of reclaiming the role, thereby creating the scarily plausible lead.
The Substance is available on Mubi.
Next: What does the ending of The Substance mean?
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