The Substance
The most grounded and emotionally realistic scene inThe Substancealso serves a spectacular purpose as a pernicious microcosm of the entire movie . From the twisted mind of author - director Coralie Fargeat , The Substanceis a body horror masterpiecethat practice a fabricated beauty - enhancing drug as a satirical base - in for all the serious decorative subroutine that citizenry undergo to cleave to their spring chicken . As she starts losing work past the age of 50 , fading celebrity Elisabeth Sparkle begins strike this drug to improve her appearance ( and it quickly flummox way out of hand ) .
For the most part , The Substancetakes place in a heightened realness . This is established ahead of time on , when a thickset stratum of snow falls on the Hollywood Walk of Fame . It ’s set in a world where aerobic exercise video recording are still as popular as they were in the ‘ 80s , where an FDA - approved drug pull up stakes its user comatose for hebdomad at a time , and where a antic teras can take the air down the street and no one will bat an oculus . But there ’s onescene inThe Substancethat ’s grounded in a deeply relatable emotional naive realism — and it ’s symbolic of the whole movie .
Elisabeth Getting Ready For A Date Is The Substance’s Most Emotionally Grounded Scene
It’s Painfully Relatable For Middle-Aged Women In The Dating Pool
Midway throughThe Substance , as Elisabeth is start out to get shadow by Sue , she urgently wants to experience attractive again . So , she phone Fred , the old class fellow who gushed over her at the beginning of the movie , to stage a date for eight o’clock . As she ’s getting quick for the date , Elisabeth puts on a striking red dress and matches it with an equally striking red lipstick . Butthe longer she look at herself in the bathroom mirror , the less sure she is that she looks good .
The Substance has an explosively challenging termination , but there are some questions that the picture leave surprisingly open - ended when the credits roll .
Every time she ’s about to depart the apartment , she ends up go away back to the mirror and reapplying her makeup . As the sequence goes on — and the clock gets closer and closer to eight — she part comparing herself to Sue ’s comatose body in the fresh constructed bathroom water closet . Sue ’s pinkish lip gloss looks not bad , so Elisabeth applies pinkish rim colour over her reddened lip rouge . She terminate up rethinking her coming into court so much that she never leavesthe apartment . This is the most grounded and emotionally naturalistic setting in the film . It ’s painfully relatable for middle - aged women in the dating pool .
Elisabeth Second-Guessing Her Makeup & Warping Her Appearance Is A Microcosm Of The Whole Movie
She Keeps Trying To Improve Her Appearance And Actually Looks Worse And Worse Each Time
Not only is this episode the most heartbreaking scene in the movie ; it ’s also a microcosm of the whole film . Elisabeth keep trying to ameliorate her appearance throughout the montage , but she in reality looks defective and bad each time she go back to the bathroom mirror . This is symbolic of the entire plot withthe “ Substance ” serum . The longer Sue enjoys the calcium light , the faster Elisabeth ages . And Sue ’s right looks do n’t last , either , as her body eventually starts strike apart . When she goes back to the Substance , she turns herself into a ugly monster .
One of the movie ’s key messages is that cosmetic enhancement at long last do more impairment than good .
One of the movie ’s key messages is that decorative enhancements at last do more damage than good . They ’re think to make people look and sense better , but they ’re destructive;aging of course always looks better than trying to by artificial means slow down the aging operation . Elisabeth looked bang-up with her original makeup , but the more she changed it — and the younger she essay to calculate — the unfit it got . The rest of the picture show take two - and - a - half hour ( and a heap of prosthetics ) to make that same point .
The Substance Is A Perfect Horror Metaphor For Hollywood’s Unrealistic Beauty Standards
The Substance Uses Cronenbergian Body Horror To Capture Societal Horrors
All the best repugnance movies use their horror image and imagery as a metaphor for societal comment . Get Outis a horror metaphor for racism , Talk to Meis a horror metaphor for drug addiction , andThe Substanceis a horror metaphor for Hollywood ’s unrealistic monetary standard of beauty . The airbrushed images in motion picture and magazines make anyone who does n’t look like Sue finger entirely slimy , andthat ’s the crux of Elisabeth ’s arc in the movie : she hand the age that Hollywood ’s powerful one-time white men have deemed to be her expiration date .
The ending of The Substance underscores the themes of the film and foreground the dangerous double standard that exist in Hollywood .
Hollywood ’s unjust beauty standards are causing people to resort to extremes like begin botox shot or exploit their oral fissure close while they slumber to decelerate down the aging procedure . Elisabeth ’s experimentation with the Substance are an even more uttermost hyperbole of those utmost amount . The Substanceuses gonzo Cronenbergian body horror to convey a timely commentary on society ’s absurd expected value of women .
Elisabeth Sparkle, a fading celebrity, turns to a mysterious drug that promises to restore her youth by creating a younger, more beautiful version of herself. But splitting time between her original and new body leads to horrifying consequences as her alternate self, Sue, begins to unravel her life in a disturbing body-horror descent.
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Elisabeth Sparkle , a fleet renown , turns to a mysterious drug that promises to restitute her youth by creating a untried , more beautiful edition of herself . But cleave sentence between her original and Modern consistency leads to horrifying consequences as her alternate ego , Sue , begins to ravel her life in a disturbing body - repugnance origin .
