Demi Moore stars in a sickening satire of society’s obsession with youth and beauty W atching gruesome chiller The Substance brings to mind Madonna ‘s speech at the 2016 Billboard Women In Music Awards. Outlining the sexist and regressive “rules” for women in the public eye, she said with a sigh: “ Be what men want you to be..
. and do not age . Because to age is a sin.
You will be criticised and vilified and definitely not played on the radio.” The protagonist of The Substance isn’t a singer, but a faded Hollywood star who has carved out a second career as a TV aerobics queen. Played brilliantly and heartbreakingly by Demi Moore , Elisabeth Sparkle is a bit like 1980s Jane Fonda, but without the depth.
Given that Moore’s own body has been scrutinised for decades – particularly in the 2000s, when she had the temerity to marry the younger Ashton Kutcher – her casting is a meta masterstroke from writer-director Coralie Fargeat. We meet Moore’s fitness guru as she finds out she’s being fired for turning 50. While stuffing shrimp into his mouth in a deliberately uncomfortable close-up, her reptilian network boss Harvey (Dennis Quaid) tells her that at this age, “it stops” for women.
Fargeat’s film has plenty to say about the brutality of our patriarchal society – sexist comments made by Harvey and his co-workers are less throwaway than they seem – and some audacious ways of making its point. Elisabeth is so horrified to have lost her job, the very.